


Facing Tempests of Dust

by grumpybell



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Drama, F/M, Grounder Bellamy Blake, Grounder Octavia Blake, POV Clarke, Romance, Shapeshifting, The Ark is a city not in space, Werewolves, skin changer, well kind of werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 07:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4253973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpybell/pseuds/grumpybell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin has grown up in the perfectly controlled environment of the Ark dome, a city created to withstand the destruction of the world outside. Now, she's been sent out with 100 other delinquents to try to survive on their own, but she knows the truth. They weren't sent away for their crimes, but rather to buy time for others in Ark, as the city is failing. While Clarke struggles to lead her band of teenagers, she encounters a man with strange abilities and an offer she finds hard to refuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Facing Tempests of Dust

 

**Facing Tempests of Dust**

 

“ _And I know he's no stranger, for I feel that I've held him for all of time”_

 

**λύκος**

Clarke Griffin has lived under a dome, in a perfectly controlled environment, her entire life. Ever since the wars, followed by diseases that, combined, wiped out over 70% of the Earth's population, society had retreated, built self sufficient domed cities where only a select few could survive, and hunkered down to wait. What they were waiting for, no one really knew anymore. Clarke Griffin's family, four generations back, had been one of the lucky ones selected for the project and growing up under glass and in a perfectly sterile environment is all Clarke has ever known. Until now.

Now, Clarke is dirty and always hungry and being followed by about 100 other teenagers with no idea what they're doing, far, far away from the domed city of Ark, where all of them grew up. But Clarke is the only one who knows the truth. They weren't ejected from the city for their “crimes,” some of them as small as petty theft, but rather because Ark is dying, it's resources waning. It is the same truth that Clarke's father was executed for trying to reveal and why she is here now, standing in the woods and trying to figure out which direction will get her back to camp.

They'd been sent out with minimal supplies and Clarke suspects that they were never really intended to survive, but it's been two months and they've only lost a handful of people, and even though those people weigh on her everyday, that's pretty promising. But today, standing alone, in the middle of the woods, Clarke can feel a distinct chill in the air and she's suddenly wondering how they're ever going to survive the winter.

She glances up at the sun, peeking weakly out from behind a thick layer of clouds, and decides to head East. It might not be a direct route, but eventually she'll hit the river and she can follow it back to camp, which, considering that the days are getting shorter, she doesn't have a lot of time to get to before dark. Clarke's never seen another person in the woods, but some of the others swear that they've seen figures darting between the trees, or at a great distance. Clarke is mostly convinced they're just seeing animals, deer or rabbits, or maybe even bears, but it's a lot easier to believe the rumors when she's hiking around lost and alone.

_You're being paranoid_ , she tells herself after whipping her head around for the eighth time in the past five minutes. She could have sworn she heard the sound of twigs snapping behind her. The worst thing they've seen in the woods is a mountain lion and she's pretty sure a mountain lion would be more stealthy than to go snapping branches all over the place, not that that's a particularly comforting thought. _Get it together, Griffin_ , Clarke thinks. Raven would laugh at her if she could see her right now, jumpy and nervous. Of course, she probably wouldn't be so nervous if she had Raven around to watch her back.

Ten minutes later, she can hear the river up ahead and she breathes a sigh of relief. She was starting to worry she was more lost than she actually was. Even though she's becoming increasingly comfortable in the woods, she doesn't want to spend the night out here. She's just caught a glimpse of the water through the trees when something snatches her from behind. She will later deny it, but she screams, more from shock than fear, as she tumbles to the ground, her head snapping back against the ground.

She thinks, groggily, that she owes Jasper an apology, because the figure looming over her is definitely a man, though not quite like any man she's ever seen. He's got dark paint smeared on his face and swirling patterns up his arms. The man pulls out a long knife and Clarke becomes dimly aware that she should do something, try to move, _anything_ , but her head hurts and her vision is spotty and she can't seem to get her limbs to obey her mind. He advances a step and this is it, she's going to die, alone in the woods, murdered by a knife wielding stranger. One moment, he's moving towards her, and the next he's gone.

Clarke attempts to make sense of the situation. He can't just be _gone_. A yell echoes through the woods and she struggles into a sitting position to see that the man isn't gone after all, just lying flat on the ground with a large black creature on his chest. She searches for the name of the animal she's only ever seen in books. Wolf, that's it. The wolf is massive, and its lips are pulled back, showing sharp white teeth. It backs off the man, slowly, moving in Clarke's direction. Clarke tries to scramble away, but it makes her head spin, so she stops. Her head feels heavy and too warm. The wolf creeps closer, but doesn't look back at her, keeping its eyes trained on the man who is struggling to his feet. The wolf is crouched directly in front of her, in a stance that could only be considered protective, which makes no sense to Clarke. She doesn't know a lot about wildlife, but she's pretty sure wolves aren't known for being protective of humans.

The man takes a step towards where the wolf is planted, and a deep, threatening growl rises in its throat, stopping the man his tracks. He eyes the creature, then makes a furious gesture and yells something in a language Clarke doesn't understand. The wolf snarls. Clarke can't make out the expression on the mans face because her vision is getting more and more cloudy and she realizes that the extra heat in her head is actually blood running down her scalp, but after another breathless moment, the man turns on his heel and stalks away and the steady rumble in the wolfs chest dies.

The wolf turns towards Clarke and she gets a glimpse of surprisingly expressive dark eyes before she passes out.

 

 

**βασίλεια**

Clarke wakes up feeling warmer than she has in weeks. She slowly comes to the realization that this is due to two factors. The first is a fire that's crackling several feet away. The second is the huge black wolf that's curled up asleep against her side. Her first instinct is to panic, but she pushes it down. Wolves are wild animals, right? If she panics, it might wake up and panic too. Clarke lies very still and tries to figure out how she got here, because she's not in the woods and she didn't build a fire. Without moving, all she can see is what appears to be a cave ceiling. She can tell she's lying on something softer than the ground, an animal skin?

Her head throbs and her hand goes to it automatically and she finds it bandaged. There has to be someone else here. Someone who's taking care of her... why? Maybe the wolf is tame. Maybe it belongs to whoever built the fire and bandaged her head and apparently carried her to shelter. With this theory firmly in her head, she eases into a sitting position. The cave is small, not large enough to live in, really, and besides the animal fur she's sitting on, it looks like a deer pelt to Clarke, and the fire, there are no signs of human habitation. While it stands to reason that whoever brought Clarke here doesn't want to do her harm, it still seems appealing to leave before they get back. After living in Ark her whole life, she knows a lot about ulterior motives.

She pushes slowly to her feet, pleased to find that her vision stays solid. She takes two steps towards the exit before something dark flashes past her. The wolf is standing in the entrance, blocking her path. It isn't tensed, ready to pounce, as she'd seen it earlier, and it isn't growling, but the message is clear. Even so, Clarke takes another step forward. The wolf doesn't move. Another step. A soft growl meets the movement. Clarke feels her heart speed up, her jaw clenching. Against her will, tears prick at the corner of her eyes. She just wants to go home. She takes another determined step, her hands shaking. The wolf jumps. For a split second, Clarke thinks she's about to bowled over, but its long body flies past her and she takes the moment to dash towards the exit. She would have kept running, never would have looked back, but then the last thing she ever expected happens.

“Wait!” a very human, very male voice calls from behind her.

Clarke stops and turns very slowly around. The wolf is gone and in its place is a very real, very handsome, and _very_ naked man. Clarke feels her mouth drop open in surprise.

“Wh-what? Who?” she manages.

“Please don't go,” he says.

“What are you?”

He rubs the back of his neck, frowning. “Will you come back in?”

Clarke swallows. “Can you,” she gestures at him, “cover up or something?” Not that it really matters now. She's seen every inch of him and it's safe to say he's the closest thing she's ever seen to anatomically perfect, and she's an artist, so she has a pretty good idea of what that would look like. He rolls his eyes and huffs in what she assumes is annoyance, but picks up the deer pelt and wraps it around his waist.

“Happy, Princess?”

Clarke glares at him, but walks back towards the fire. “Are you going to explain what the hell is going on now? Also, don't call me Princess.”

He sits down next to the fire and pokes at it with an extra stick. “Care to introduce yourself? I _did_ save your life.”

She narrows her eyes at him and pointedly takes a seat with some distance between them. “My name's Clarke, and I'll say thank you when you start explaining. How about _your_ name?”

“Bellamy.” He doesn't look at her, just continues to prod the fire. “And there's not really much to explain. I don't know your word for it... I think it's something like skin changer.”

“You can turn into a wolf,” Clarke says.

“I thought that was clear.” He shrugs. Clarke half wonders if this is all a dream. Maybe she's still knocked out from the blow to the head.

“I'm sorry, but wolves suddenly turning into humans isn't exactly an every day occurrence where I'm from,” Clarke responds in a snarky tone.

Bellamy looks at her finally, eyes dark. “I'm aware, Princess.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“I'm also aware that your safe little city has kicked you out. You better get used to the things that happen out here real fast.”

“Is this why you didn't want me to leave? So you could give me a lecture?”

“No.”

“Then get to the point.”

“My people sent me to find out about you, the ones who left the dome.”

“Your _people_?”

“Yes, my tribe.”

“There are a lot of you? People who survived outside of the domes.”

“Yes.” Clarke's head is starting to hurt again. In the dome, they'd been taught that human life was impossible to sustain outside the dome, that was the whole reason they were built. She'd honestly thought she and her friends were the first humans outside of the domes in generations.

“And they're... like you?”

“Some of them.” Bellamy shrugs again. “Not many.”

“And what do your people want from us?” Clarke asks, trying to square her shoulders and put her leader face on. She suspects that Bellamy won't buy it since he's just saved her life and carried her back to safety.

“That depends on what sort of people you are. We might trade with you. We might help you prepare for winter. We might not. That's what I'm supposed to help them decide.”

Clarke feels his words sink in. _Winter_. She's not stupid. She and the rest of the 100 will never survive winter without help. They don't know anything about winter. They've grown up in a climate controlled environment. She's read about winter, about snow and the low temperatures, and she has enough medical training to know how fast that can kill. Plus, they'll run out of food, water could become scarce, they don't have permanent shelter.

“And how do you decide that?” Clarke asks warily.

“I come back with you to your camp. I observe. Then we decide if we want to help.”

Clarke bites her lip. There will be questions, bringing Bellamy back. People won't trust him. Tensions are already often running high in camp. He will complicate things. But she has to be honest with herself and do what's best for her people. If there's a chance of getting help, she has to take it.

“Okay.”

“There's another condition. If I go with you, I go with you as a wolf. No one else in your camp is to know that I'm human and no one else it know why I'm there. I don't want them to alter their behavior because I'm watching them.”

“How am I supposed to explain bringing home a massive wolf?”

Bellamy gives a little half shrug. “However you want, Princess.”

“Wolves don't just follow people home.”

“Are you sure that they'll know that?”

“We're not idiots.”

Bellamy grumbles something under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, Princess. Tell them you think I'm part dog or something, I don't care. Dogs were domesticated. Do you really think anyone's going to suspect I'm a human?”

He's right. No one will think that. Still, Clarke doesn't like conceding a point to him, so she just clenches her jaw and stares moodily into the fire.

“Fine, when do we leave?” she asks, finally.

“In the morning.”

“They'll be worried if I don't come home tonight.”

“Then we'll leave _very early_ in the morning,” Bellamy says. And then, in the blink of her eye, he's gone and there's the big black wolf in his place. He stands up and shakes off the deer pelt then gives her a strangely pointed look and lies down, curling into a ball.

Clarke hadn't thought she'd be able to fall asleep, not with a man who's also a wolf sleeping a few feet away and her mind running a million miles a minute with everything that's happened in the past 24 hours, but in what feels like moments, she's blinking blearily as Bellamy shakes her awake.

“What?”

“Time to go,” he says brusquely.

“Is the sun even up yet?” Clarke grumbles.

“You're the one who wanted to get there as soon as possible.”

“I take it that's a no.” Clarke struggles to her feet and rubs the sleep out of her eyes, only to realize that Bellamy is yet again, completely naked. She supposes she shouldn't be surprised, considering she'd been sleeping on the deer pelt and there doesn't appear to be anything else that could be used as clothing in the cave, but it still shocks her.

“Do you not own clothes?” she snaps, as she stumbles towards the cave mouth.

Bellamy snorts behind her. “Actually, I do. What do you think I used to mop up all your blood, Princess? Head wounds are messy.”

Clarke's brushes her fingers across the cloth that's tied around her head and realizes it does feel like shirt material. She's about to snap back, but the next thing she knows, Bellamy in wolf form is shouldering past her and into the woods.

She'd never admit that she's not sure how to get back to her camp, but she keeps her steps slow and lets Bellamy lead the way. She notices that though he doesn't look around much, his ears are constantly swiveling, flicking one direction and then the next. She wonders if things like advanced hearing and sense of smell transfer to his human body.

Relief rushes over her when she sees the makeshift gate she and her people had built, looming before them. Bellamy falls back to walk at her side, ears perked. She gets the distinct impression that he's nervous for how the 100 will react to his presence. He does certainly look like a threat.

“Clarke!” the gates swing open and several figures dart out, led by Jasper, who hugs her enthusiastically. Beside her, Bellamy makes a noise, something like a grunt of surprise, as he's forced to dodge out of the way of Jasper's flailing limbs.

“What the hell is _that_?” someone says. It sounds like Finn.

Jasper breaks away from Clarke, seeming to notice Bellamy for the first time, his eyes going wide. He takes a couple steps backward towards Monty, Finn, and Miller, who've all come out to greet her.

“It's uh, I think it's part wolf, but it must be part dog because it's friendly.” Clarke glances at Bellamy, who somehow manages to look thoroughly unimpressed with her lying skills. She resists the urge to hiss something at him.

“See?” she pats Bellamy on the head and the annoyance in his eyes is clear as day. Clarke tries to convey with her eyes that he can deal with it.

Miller and Monty both look intrigued. Jasper looks scared. Finn looks skeptical, arms crossed across his chest.

“Do you really think it's a good idea bringing a wild animal back to camp?” Finn asks.

“Aw,” Clarke forces her voice to be cheerful and she crouches next to Bellamy, ruffling his ears. “Bellamy wouldn't hurt a fly. Would you?” she asks, giving Bellamy a sweet look. She bites back a laugh at his expression. She can tell that she's going to be hearing about this from him later, but it's totally worth it.

“You found a wolf in the woods and you named it _Bellamy_?” Miller says.

“Yep.” Clarke shrugs. “Don't worry, I'll make sure he behaves. Now, is there breakfast? I'm starving.” She steps past the boys and heads towards the gate and she can feel Bellamy following close behind her.

“Monty, that's a _wolf_ ,” she hears Jasper whisper loudly.

“Yes it is.”

“That's so fucking _cool_!”

 

 

**ὕπνος**

It takes a little over a week for the kids to get used to Bellamy. At first they'd stared a lot with varying degrees of fear or curiosity on their faces. Some had approached Clarke and asked her questions about him. Others had kept a wide berth at all times. But even the most skittish had come to accept him as something of Clarke's own personal shadow by the end of the second week.

For her part, Clarke's gotten used to him as well. He generally stays quite close to her, trailing her as she works in the medic tent or goes out to gather herbs. He's even made himself useful during these excursions, catching a rabbit or two, or once, a deer. It's a bit weird, constantly being with someone who in mind is a person, yet who has no means of communication, other than looks and sighs and the occasional growl. Clarke comes to find that she can read him very well these days. She supposes it's inevitable. He rarely leaves her side.

Every now and then, when everyone has retired to their tents for the evening, he'll slip back into his human form so they can talk. He'll tell her about what he's witnessed for the day and she'll talk about all the work that needs to be done, the things she worries about, the people who are struggling. She demands answers about the man who had attacked her in the woods and he gives her vague responses about loners and an illness that had left some people vicious. She'd managed to find a pair of pants that actually fits him and he seems to understand that his nakedness makes her uncomfortable, so on the evenings he's human, he's usually already turned and dressed by the time she enters her tent.

Seventeen days after she'd brought Bellamy back to camp, the first real cold hits. Clarke's never felt cold like this in her life, sharp air that makes her throat ache and her body shiver. Everyone spends the day around the fire, miserable. When Clarke crawls into bed that night, she tries to pretend that the thin blanket she has is the lovely duvet she'd had back home. Her hands feel like blocks of ice.

She only hears one heavy thump as warning before she finds Bellamy standing over her. He places his paws carefully on either side of her body and then lowers himself gently on top her. His fur is soft and his body heat is glorious, washing over her.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asks, even though it's pretty obvious. He's just become her own personal blanket. His weight is heavy, but there's something comforting about it. Even in the dark she can see the look he gives her and she interprets it to mean, _Do you really want me to turn human (and naked) so we can argue about this_?

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, fine.”

Bellamy huffs, but then settles, dropping his head so that it rests against her collarbone. She can feel his warm breath on her neck. Instinctually, she wraps her arms around his body and she remembers, suddenly, when she was small and would sleep with stuffed animals. The feeling is similar, only Bellamy is much larger and much more real. She falls asleep thinking she's never felt so gloriously warm in her entire life.

It takes Clarke several moments to recognize the feeling she wakes up with, her fingers wound into soft fur. Contentment. It's not an easy thing to come by these days, not with the constant struggle and worry and everyone looking to her. But for a few moments, the sunlight is pushing at her eyelids and her whole body is warm and relaxed and she feels content. Slowly, she peels her eyelids back and yawns, stretching her limbs out. She notices Bellamy watching her with smug eyes.

She shoots him an exasperated look. “Okay, fine, you were right, that was nice.”

He huffs out a little breath, then leaps off her bed and shakes out his fur. Clarke follows slowly, tugging on her pants, which feel gritty and in desperate need of a wash. Still, the feeling of contentment lingers until she steps out of her tent and sees how high the sun is in the sky. How late did she sleep?

“Raven!” she barks at the passing girl.

Raven stops, eyebrows arched. “Yes?”

“What time is it? Why did everyone let me sleep so late?”

Raven rolls her eyes. “We _tried_ to wake you up. Your stupid wolf growled at anyone who tried to come in your tent.”

Clarke turns her glare on Bellamy as Raven stomps away, arms crossing across her chest. He looks back innocently. She hates that she can't yell at him in public without looking like a crazy person.

“We're having a discussion about this later,” Clarke grumbles at him, then takes off in the direction of the medic tent. She senses Bellamy trailing her.

She plans to have a serious talk with him in her tent that evening. He can't just go and mess with her daily schedule. People need her and she can't afford to sleep in. Still, she grudgingly admits that she feels better than she has in weeks, the knots in her muscles looser and her eyes clearer.

She never gets the chance to confront him, because at dinner a boy, Myles she thinks his name is, skids into camp yelling about Ark. He'd been out with several others on a hunting expedition in the direction of the city. It takes him a full five minutes to catch his breath and calm down enough to explain. He takes a seat around the fire and someone passes him some food, though he only picks at it and doesn't eat.

“Myles, what happened?” Clarke asks. She can feel Bellamy looming behind her and finds his presence comforting.

“We were only just in sight of the city,” Myles says, “and something, I don't know what it was, came out of the sky and shattered the dome.” That's impossible, Clarke thinks, the dome is designed to withstand nuclear attack. Something doesn't just shatter it. But she can see the truth in Myles eyes.

“We watched for a while. The city is burning. There were a few... I guess they were explosions. The hospital, the Chancellor's house, the school, they're all gone.”

“Where are the others?” she hears herself asking, even as she feels she's floating away from her body. The hospital, the Chancellor's house, the school... The likelihood that her mother survived if those places are flattened is slim to none. She vaguely hears Myles say something about being sent ahead because he was the fastest. Clarke nods absently, trying to keep her breathing steady. Something presses against her shoulder and she turns her head to see Bellamy's leaning his forehead gently against her arm. She reaches for him, needing to feel something that is steady and calm and real and he climbs into her lap, letting her wrap her arms around him and press her face into his fur. She wills herself not to cry, not here, sitting at the fire where everyone can see her.

“Clarke?” She lifts her head to see Monty standing a couple of feet away, his eyes concerned. “Maybe you should go to bed. It's been a long day.”

She nods gratefully at him and Bellamy leaps from her lap, streaking off towards her tent. She knows, as she gets slowly to her feet, that by the time she makes it there, he'll be dressed and waiting for her. The thought is oddly comforting and exhausting at the same time. Privacy hasn't really existed for her since Bellamy came to the camp and she's not sure if she wants some right now.

She doesn't know the answer until she steps into the tent and there he is, paused in what was clearly pacing, worry scrawled all over his face, and she finds herself moving towards him before she has a chance to think about it. Bellamy has spent very little time in the camp human, usually only moments each night, but right now, she relishes the fact that he's human and when she crashes into him, his arms wrap around her tightly.

“I'm sorry,” he says lowly and she's glad he doesn't say it will be okay, because she likes that so far she and Bellamy have been honest with each other. Something like this just isn't okay.

“I just want to sleep. Can we just sleep?”

“Of course.” They sort of tumble onto her cot and it's different from the night before because the air is heavy and her heart is aching and he's human and he's holding her tight against him, but it's the same because he's still Bellamy and he's the same presence that's been at her side for the past two weeks and she's glad he's here now.

“Bellamy?”

“Mmm?”

“Don't you dare let me sleep in tomorrow.”

He chuckles. “Anything you say, Princess.”

 

 

 

**προδοσία**

The next four days are a blur. Clarke wants to hike to Ark herself, but the others (and Bellamy when they talk at night) convince her that she's more use in camp. Instead, she sends out a group to try and round up survivors. Clarke doesn't know what she'll do if they bring many people back. Their camp won't hold many more people and she has a feeling that adults are unlikely to want to follow their rules and lead.

The first night after they've left, she paces her tent and vents her worries to Bellamy, who sits on her cot with his arms crossed, his steady eyes following her furious strides. Every worry she has seems to pour out of her mouth. She doesn't know how to do this. She never planned for what would happen if the whole city collapsed and isn't that stupid because she knew it was failing and she, out of all people, should have seen this coming.

“Clarke,” Bellamy tries to interrupt her ranting, but it doesn't work. It's not until he reaches out and catches her wrist, effectively halting her pacing, that she even looks at him. She can tell from the expression on his face, the way it's all soft angles and _not_ Bellamy (or at least not Bellamy as she's used to him) that she must be acting crazy.

“Breathe,” he tells her. “Slow down. You can't control what the kids you sent out will or will not find. You can't control who or what they will or will not bring back. You can't control how the people who might come back with them might behave. You have to take it one step at a time, Princess.”

She sits down heavily next to him. “I might have slight control issues.”

Bellamy laughs, a full, deep laugh, that makes her stare at him in awe. In all this time they've spent together, he's only been human for small portions of it and in that time she's never heard him laugh. It's a rich, joyous sound that she'd like to hear more often.

Clarke narrows her eyes at him. “Are you laughing _at_ me?”

Bellamy shrugs. “ _slight_ control issues?”

Clarke feels her lips twist up in a smile. “It's a trait I got from my mother,” she admits. "My mom and I have never gotten along great, but we definitely have some things in common. I'd probably never admit that to her...” Clarke sobers. Now she probably won't ever get the chance.

“She was in the dome,” he says softly. It's not really a question, there's nowhere else where she would have been.

Clarke nods, trying to swallow the pain that's rising in her throat. She hasn't cried about any of this, but she's not sure she can hold it in much longer. She knows herself. She knows that eventually it will all just explode outward.

“You don't know anything for sure,” he says. “I know it doesn't look good, but you shouldn't count her out until you know.”

A tear slips down Clarke's cheek and she brushes it impatiently away. “The last thing I said to her was that I never wanted to see her again,” she admits. Bellamy slips an arm around her shoulder, tucking her into his side. Clarke leans into him, basking in how absolutely solid he is.

“I'm still mad at her, but I wish that wasn't what I'd said. I don't know how not to be mad at her anymore.” Clarke can feel the whole story lodged in her chest and for the first time ever, she wants to let it out. She wants to talk about what happened and how she feels about it (even if she's still not sure) and why she's crying over her mother, but still so angry. Once the words start, it's like a flood.

“It's probably wrong to pick favorites, but I was always a lot closer with my dad than my mom. He was just so understanding and supportive and I always felt like no matter what I did, it didn't meet my mother's expectations. Mom was so driven and ambitious and she was always dragging Dad and I to these fancy events and rubbing shoulders with “the right people” and I hated all that stuff. And then, one day, I find out that my father's discovered there's a flaw in the dome and we're running out of energy. We're not sustainable. We had a few years, but it was inevitable that the dome was going to have to be abandoned. He wanted to tell people, to give them time to prepare, to maybe even send expeditions out so we could learn what we might be dealing with. But when he tried to tell them... My mom turned him in. They executed him. And when I tried to tell them anyway, they arrested me and later they sent me out here.”

Bellamy is quiet for a few moments. “That was very brave of you.”

“What?”

“Still trying to tell everyone what was happening.”

Clarke closes her eyes. She'd never really thought of it that way. “It's what my dad would have done... I just, I don't know how I feel now. I've spent the last few months hating my mother, but now that she's gone... I miss her.”

“In your dome, do they know the old stories, the mythology that has been passed down for more years than we remember?”

Clarke shakes her head. “I don't think so.” She doesn't understand where this is going, but she loves the timbre of Bellamy's voice and is happy to listen.

“There is a story, an old one, about a war over the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Troy. This was a time when people believed in many Gods and Goddesses who had different powers and abilities and they allowed these beliefs to rule their actions. Helen was so beautiful that a man, Paris, stole her away from her husband and started a massive war. Helen's husband, Menelaus, asked his brother, Agememnon for help and he gathered a fleet. The winds weren't with Agememnon and he was unable to sail, but a priest convinced him that if he sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to the Goddess Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt and archery, then the winds would change and he could sail. Agememnon tricked his wife, Clytemenstra, into believing he had made a match for Iphigenia and convinced her to send their daughter to him. When she arrived, he sacrificed her and the wind changed and the ships sailed. The war over Helen lasted ten years and in that time Clytemenstra plotted revenge on her husband. When he returned home, with the Trojan princess, Cassandra, as a concubine, Clytemenstra waited until he was in the bath and then trapped him in a net a stabbed him to death. Later, Clytemenstra and Agememnon's son, Orestes, murdered Clytemenstra.” Bellamy swallows, pausing and Clarke finds herself hanging on every word, even if she's confused on what he's trying to say.

“It's one of the most famous betrayals of all time.” He smiles a little. “And probably one of the more complicated ones. Family and relationships are messy, Clarke. You don't have to forgive your mother, but that doesn't mean you can't love her.”

Clarke feels his words sink in, settling somewhere in her chest. “You're really kind of smart, huh?” she says.

For the first time ever, she sees a light flush rise in Bellamy's cheeks. “I like history. I think people should remember.”

“There are other stories like that?” Clarke wonders how he keeps complicated names and places and timelines in his head like that. She stifles a yawn, waiting for his answer.

“Lots. Maybe I'll tell you more one day. You should sleep now.”

Clarke scoots back on the cot and lies down. “One more?” She's vaguely embarrassed by how much she sounds like a child, asking for a bedtime story, but Bellamy settles next to her and doesn't comment.

“Once, there was a little boy and he grew up out in the wilderness with his mother and their people. His mother was beautiful and good with her hands. She made elegant clothing that the more well off villagers would buy or trade for. The little boy was happy, but he never knew his father and he would always ask for stories about the man. He wanted to hear tales of adventure and daring, but his mother wouldn't talk about the boy's father, no matter how much he begged. It wasn't until he was older that he understood. His mother's work was pretty, but it didn't bring in enough money to support the family and she took extra work in the beds of strange men. It was very likely that she didn't even know who the boy's father was.”

Clarke can feel the heaviness in her eyelids, but she fights sleep, wanting to hear the end of the story. She wonders if it will be as sad as the last one.

“One day, his mother became pregnant again and eventually gave birth to a daughter. She let the boy name her and he chose the name Octavia and promised her he would always take care of her. For many years, that's what he did. Even when their mother got sick and eventually died, he took care of Octavia, because she was the most important thing in the world to him. But Octavia grew up and she was strong and fierce and she became a great warrior in her own right and fell in love and she didn't need the boy to look after her anymore. She moved away with her lover and the boy was left wondering what to do next and so his village sent him away on a mission and, if he completes it, they'll give him another, and another, and maybe, one day, he'll find what he's looking for.”

Clarke curls her fingers against his bicep. “He sounds lonely,” she murmurs, her eyes slipping closed. The last thing she remembers before she falls asleep is Bellamy's voice.

“He does.”

 

 

 

**ἐλπίς**

When the scouting party she'd sent out returns, they don't have anyone in tow. Clarke is simultaneously relieved and disappointed. When questioned, they claimed the city was clearly unstable and not safe to try to enter. While it's obvious that not the entire population was wiped out, whoever had survived and exited the city had already left by the time the scouts got there.

Clarke spends all her waking hours trying to sort out patrols. The 100 are all anxious for news of their parents and more willing to volunteer to go out on patrol and hopefully come across some of the survivors than usual. With all the commotion, she doesn't even notice that the temperatures have been steadily dropping until she wakes up one morning shivering, despite Bellamy's additional body heat.

She climbs out of bed and dresses as quickly as possible, rubbing her hands up and down on her arms to try to get her blood flowing. Behind her, she hears Bellamy grumble about the loss of her body heat. It reminds her, suddenly, why he's here and she turns to look at him, his hair mussed up and his eyes bleary with sleep.

“Bell?”

“Clarke, you know I'm always happy to listen to what you have to say, but please tell me that this isn't going to be a long conversation because I only have this one pair of pants and I'd really like to shift and have a nice fur coat instead.”

A smile tugs at Clarke's lips, but she pushes it away. “It's getting colder.”

Bellamy raises his eyebrows. “Yes.”

“Have you made a decision about whether or not you're going to advise your people to help us?”

There it is again, for the second time, a blush spreading across his cheeks. “I may have already sent word.”

“You did.” She's not sure how to interpret this.

“Yes. Now it's just a matter of waiting for them to arrive with Winter supplies.”

Clarke felt hope bloom in her chest. “You told them to help us?”

“I did.”

Clarke swears she feels lighter than she did a moment before. She can't help but throw herself back into bed with Bellamy, grinning widely. She hugs him.

“Thank you.”

He doesn't answer, but she doesn't mind. He's there and he's helping her save her people and that's what matters.

She's noticed that over the past couple of weeks Bellamy has been disappearing for more and more time. In the early days, he'd spent nearly all of his time at her side, watching her in the medic tent, watching her people over dinner, eying the guards on the walls and every advancement camp made, but these days he'll be gone for hours at a time and, while she's never asked where he goes, his absence is getting more and more noticeable. She suspects he may have a contact nearby, which is how he'd sent a message to his village. She wonders if he would tell her if she asked.

She finds out how he's spent most of his time away three days later, when Clarke returns to her tent, so exhausted from lack of sleep that she collapses into her cot and comes to the shocking realization that something is very different. Her first, idiotic thought, is that she'd somehow missed that Bellamy was lying on the cot in wolf form, because what she's lying on is very soft and definitely not her cot. After the split second that this passes through brain, she discards the thought. Bellamy would have reacted much too fast for her to land on him. She sits up, and discovers that her entire cot is draped in various animal skins, some from animals she can't identify. Some are much larger than anything she's seen in the woods. Clarke sits, openmouthed, staring dumbly at her bed.

Her astonishment is broken when Bellamy darts into the tent and slips into human form, reaching for his pants. Clarke doesn't bother to avert her gaze. Though he's taken to wearing the pants when he's human, she's seen him change quite frequently.

“Bell.”

“Yes?” he turns around as he's buttoning the pants. Her befuddled brain has finally worked out the fact that Bellamy is the only one who comes into her tent without permission, which means...

“Did you do this?” she gestures at the bed.

“Yes.”

“I can't sleep in a bed like this while my people freeze.”

Bellamy looks at her levelly. “You're cold.”

“But so is everyone else!”

He crosses his arms. “Well, then. _Those_ are _mine_ and I sleep _here,_ with you. So, you know, unless you want to find somewhere else...” he shrugs.

“Bell.”

He sighs heavily, then trudges over to the bed and plops down next to her. He grabs one of the furs with one hand and catches her with the other, pulling her into a lying position. He pulls the fur over them.

“See, this is warm and comfortable and really nice and you should just enjoy it.”

“But-”

“-My people will be here soon and there will be plenty for everyone. But until then, just enjoy it, Princess.” His voice gets slightly lower. “Let me take care of you.”

Clarke's heart squeezes at his words and she tries not to think about exactly what implications there might be behind those words and what she wants for them to mean because she doesn't have time to think about things like that, but she gives in and lets her body relax and falls asleep in the warm, soft bed, her face pressed to Bellamy's chest.

 

 

 

**φθόνος**

If there was a definition of a bad day, today would be it. Clarke had woken up with a blinding headache and stumbled through the morning. No less than eight kids had shown up in the medic tent with various injuries including one bloody nose, two broken bones, and lots of blood. If that weren't bad enough, Raven and Finn have a massive fight in the middle of camp, the details of which are unclear to Clarke, but the fact that Raven has been avoiding her isn't a good sign.

Clarke and Finn had had a brief relationship in the early days before Raven had turned up, having found a way out of the dome to follow Finn, her long term boyfriend, into exile. Clarke had been furious when she found out Finn had never ended his relationship with Raven before starting one with Clarke, though he argued that he hadn't thought he'd ever see Raven again. Still, Clarke had kept her distance from Finn since then and managed to win Raven over as a friend.

She's walking back from dinner with Bellamy padding along quietly at her side when she hears her name.

“Clarke!” She takes a deep, steadying breath. She knows that voice. She stops and turns to see Finn striding towards her, a determined look on his face.

“Hey, Finn.” She tries to keep her voice light. Maybe this won't be too bad. She notices Bellamy has stilled beside her and she wishes he'd just keep walking. She doesn't really want him to hear whatever Finn is about to say.

“Hey,” Finn gives her a small smile as he reaches her. “I really need to talk to you.”

“Okay, what's up?” Clarke resists the urge to cross her arms and protect herself from his words.

“I... um.” Finn scratches his neck nervously. “I guess you heard about me and Raven?”

“Not really,” Clarke says. “Just that there was a fight.”

“We broke up.”

“Oh, uh, sorry to hear that.”

“We broke up because I want to be with you, Clarke.” There's a moment of ringing silence where all Clarke can think is _oh, no_. And then Bellamy lets out a low, warning growl. Finn's eyes snap to where Bellamy is standing at her side.

“Finn, what happened between us is over. I didn't know about Raven and she's great, okay. I would never do anything that would hurt her.”

“Please, Clarke. You know we're good together,” Finn tries. Bellamy's ears go flat to his head and the growl grows, Finn glancing at him nervously.

“Bell, stop it,” Clarke says, nudging him with her hip. The growl dies, but his stance stays predatory. “Look, Finn, I don't feel the same way you do.”

“Clarke, I'm in love with you,” Finn blurts and takes a step towards her. Clarke swallows and tries to hold her ground, but her heart leaps nervously. She doesn't want Finn this close. “And I think if you stop fighting it, you might realize you're in love with me-”

Bellamy actually snarls and Clarke realizes he's about to pounce so she grasps him, holding him back.

“Bellamy!” she snaps. She can feel his growl reverberating against her arms. “Finn, you should go. I don't feel the same about you. I'm sorry about you and Raven, but we don't have a future.”

Before he has a chance to respond, she shoves Bellamy in the direction of her tent, glaring deeply at him. He lets her direct him and slinks along next to her, head down. He seems to know he has an earful coming. The moment they clear the entrance of the tent, she rounds on him.

“What the _fuck_ was that!”

Bellamy shifts human and reaches for his pants. “Finn is a douchebag,” he grumbles.

“That doesn't give you the right to _attack_ him! What were you going to do?”

Bellamy shrugs. “Nothing permanent. Someone needs to teach him that when a girl tries to let him down, he should walk away.”

“And someone needs to teach you that violence isn't always the answer!”

“I was trying to _help_ you! You didn't want him there and he wasn't backing off!”

“I had it handled!”

Bellamy crosses his arms. “I know you're strong, Clarke, but I don't trust him.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Finn wouldn't hurt me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“What's your problem with him?” Clarke demands, her heart pounding a little faster. She's pretty sure she has some idea what the answer to that question is.

“It's not just him,” Bellamy deflects.

“Oh, yeah? Because you haven't mentioned anyone else.”

“You want a list? Finn, Murphy, and Dax. They're no good, Clarke. I've been here watching everyone for weeks and I don't trust a hair on any of their heads.”

“Finn's a pacifist,” Clarke argues, though she thinks he's hit the nail on the head with Murphy and Dax, both boys give her the creeps.

“For now.” Bellamy stomps across the room and climbs into bed. “Everyone has violence in them if you push the right buttons.”

Clarke presses her face into her hands and takes a deep calming breath. What a miraculously crappy day. She follows Bellamy to bed a few minutes later, but is sure to lie as far from him is possible on the cot. Her anger is a low simmer, but it is still there, burning behind her breastbone.

“I'm sorry.” Clarke nearly startles at Bellamy's voice. She'd thought he was asleep.

“Are you?”

Bellamy wraps an arm around her waist she lets herself be pulled against him. “For upsetting you, anyway,” he admits.

Clarke sighs. “I suppose it counts that you're at least being honest.”

“I don't like Finn, but I don't like upsetting you more.”

“So you'll leave Finn alone? I don't have to keep an eye on you?”

Bellamy is silent for a moment. “Your wish is my command, Princess.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, even though he can't see it. “Dork,” she mumbles into his chest.

 

 

 

**θάνατος**

Tuesday brings warmer weather than they've seen in weeks and Clarke takes advantage of it by hiking out into the woods to collect some of the herbs that won't be available once winter hits. Bellamy lopes ahead at her, sniffing at plants and perking up whenever a bird or squirrel darts by. Clarke suppresses a giggle at how dog-like he seems, but she thinks she catches him glaring at her, so she must not do a great job.

The plan is to stock up on as many supplies as possible, and dry some of the rarer herbs and hope that there's enough. In previous trips Bellamy had pointed out several plants he knew from being patched up by his own people, but healing isn't his specialty so Clarke is sure she's missing things. He tells her his people will send a healer with the group that is bringing supplies and he will help prepare her for the most common winter issues as much as possible.

Even so, Clarke is anxious. Bellamy tells her stories of winter and snow and the harsh conditions and he explains that even his village loses people to illness and injury every year. Clarke doesn't want to lose anybody. It's been over two months since any of her people have died and she sometimes feels like she's still recovering from those losses.

She scrambles onto a large log that Bellamy had cleared in one leap and she can see him watching with amusement as she struggles to the top. She stands there, hands on her hips and looking down at him.

“It's not that funny,” she tells him, but of course he can't answer in wolf form. One second she's mock frowning at him, and the next her arm is burning with pain and she's stumbling, trying to keep her footing. She looks to her arm and sees blood blossoming on her shirt. Bellamy streaks forward and leaps directly for her. Her world spins and she lands on her back, Bellamy's paws heavy on her chest as something streaks over her head and buries itself in a tree nearby.

Even as she's struggling to catch her breath, Bellamy's off her and away, disappearing in the underbrush. Clarke finally gets a deep breath and pushes herself into a sitting position in time to see Bellamy wrestling with a large man. There's an earsplitting yelp from Bellamy that has Clarke's heart in her throat and the two fall apart, but he's on his feet in an instant. The man is swinging a long knife and has markings like the other man who had attacked her in the woods.

The knife swings out in a long sweeping arc, but Bellamy dodges, leaps, and they both go down hard. There's a muffled yell and then a terrible gurgling sound and Bellamy rolls away, giving Clarke a view that allows her to see that's he's torn the mans throat out with his teeth. But Bellamy doesn't stop to catch his breath and streaks back to her and suddenly he's blinking at her in human form, blood smeared around his mouth and down his chest and she realizes there's an open gash across his front. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then grabs her injured arm desperately. His mouth falls to the wound and he clamps down, sucking fiercely.

Clarke cries out in surprise and pain. “ _Shit_! What the hell are you doing?”

Bellamy breaks away and spits blood, then places his mouth back on the wound. Clarke tries to squirm away from him, but he his grip is so tight she's sure it will leave bruises. Only after he's repeated the process five times, does he release her, finally dropping to the ground and lying on his back, chest heaving.

“Seriously, what the fuck, Bellamy?”

“His clan are known for poisoning their arrows,” he says between breaths. “You have to suck it out before it gets into your bloodstream or it can kill you.”

Clarke's brain grasps on the word “clan” and it bounces around her head. She should be thinking about poison. She should be thinking that if Bellamy didn't know that, she'd probably be dead. She should be thinking that they'd _both_ almost died, but she's not.

“His _clan_?”

He sits up, appraising her with his eyes. She realizes the cut across his chest is still bleeding and she reaches for him, but he shrugs her hands away, muttering something about “minor wounds” and “it's fine.”

“So, his _clan,”_ she repeats.

“Yeah, Princess, his clan.”

“You told me that the guy who attacked me that first day was a loner and crazy.”

“I didn't know if I could trust you,” he says defensively.

“And you didn't think to mention this detail in the past few _weeks_.”

Bellamy sighs, pressing fingers to his temple. “Can we go home before we have this argument? It's not safe out here.”

Clarke wants to argue, but he's right. “Fine.” She stands up, sets her jaw, and begins to march in the direction of camp. Bellamy slips back into his wolf form and walks beside her. She tries not to show she's concerned at the way he's limping slightly.

They manage to slide back into camp without anyone noticing the blood and head straight for Clarke's tent. She's relieved that she keeps a minor first aid kit in her tent. Bellamy shifts, puts on his pants, and sits down on the cot. Clarke rummages through the kit and comes up with what she's looking for. She goes to kneel before Bellamy on the cot and begins to clean his wound, despite his minor protests.

“Talk,” she orders, as she cleans the blood away.

“There are a lot of different clans in the woods,” he starts, his voice low and forcibly calm. “My people are peaceful. Most of the clans are. But there are a few that are more violent. They kill for sport. They encroach on our lands. My people have wanted to avoid war if possible, but as these clans get more aggressive, it looks like that is less likely. Part of the reason my people want to help you is because they hope that, in time, your people might help ours defend our lands.”

“They want us to get involved in a _war?_ ” Clarke asks.

“It's not a war yet.”

“But it might be.” The cut on his chest is shallow enough that it doesn't need stitches. “Hold still. I can't put a bandage on if you're squirming.”

“Is it so wrong that we're looking for potential help?”

“Don't you dare pretend that you don't know exactly what I'm pissed about.”

Bellamy shifts as if to cross his arms, then winces and stops. “Why does it feel like I spend half my time apologizing to you?”

“Because you're an idiot? Also, you _haven't_ apologized yet.” Clarke finishes wrapping cloth around his chest and ties it off, maybe a little tighter than normal. His eyes says he knows exactly what she's doing.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you.”

“I can't promise we'll agree to fight. I won't force my people into a war.”

“I know that. They know that. They're hoping their hospitality will pay off.”

“It's pretty bad, then. Isn't it?”

Bellamy exhales loudly. “Yeah. It's really bad.”

Clarke moves to sit next to him. “I wish you'd told me.”

“I know.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Does this mean I'm forgiven?”

“On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“You're going to teach me how to fight.”

Bellamy snaps his head around to look at her, like he thinks she might be joking. “Clarke.”

“I'm not kidding. I'm not down for any more of this, 'Clarke ends up lying on the ground with some form of injury while Bellamy beats up the bad guy' deal. I've had enough of it.”

“You're serious.”

“Of course I'm serious.”

“If I teach you, promise me you won't do anything stupid.”

“No promises.”

He makes an annoyed sound at the back of his throat.

“If you don't teach me, I'll just ask someone else.”

Bellamy snorts. “Yeah, like who?”

“Mmmmm. I've heard Dax has a mean left hook,” she teases.

“That's not funny.”

“Then teach me.”

“I mean it, Clarke. Stay away from Dax.” There's a note of urgency in his voice that makes it clear that he hasn't taken her joke well. She rolls her eyes.

“I know, I know. He's 'no good' and all that. Do we have a deal?”

“Fine.” He flops back onto the cot. “When do I get to win a fight?”

“When you have a decent argument,” Clarke tells him, the adrenaline from the ordeal starting to seep out of her system and leave her feeling exhausted and tense.

“You know what this means?” He's smiling, a beautiful breathtaking smile.

“What?”

“I get to turn you into a warrior princess.”

 

 

 

**ἄχος**

Every time Clarke feels like she has a chance to breathe, the world starts squeezing her again. It starts with Raven, who confronts her four days after the incident with Finn, her lips pressed into a determined line.

“I'm guessing Finn's talked to you by now,” Raven says bluntly, as soon as she stomps into the medic tent. The boy whose foot Clarke had just finished bandaging darts out like he's afraid there's going to be an outright brawl.

“He did,” Clarke confirms, hoping Raven can tell by her tone of voice that it had not been a welcome conversation. She must sense something because Raven tilts her head to the side and studies Clarke, her features softening.

“You don't want him?”

“Not at all, Raven. Not even a little bit. I know I said it before, but I'll say it again, what happened between Finn and me meant nothing to me and I would never had done it if I knew you existed and you mean a lot more to me than Finn does.”

The last of the intensity slips off Raven's face. She sighs. “Is it horrible that I was sort of hoping you'd pushed him in to dumping me? So it wasn't just all coming from him?”

“No, it's not horrible. You love him. But, just from where I'm standing, you deserve way better,” Clarke responds. She's glad Raven no longer looks angry with her, but she feels bad for once again coming between her and Finn. She wishes nothing had ever happened between her and Finn and that he loved Raven the way she deserves to be loved.

“Thanks, Clarke.” Raven sits down on a makeshift cot, staring at her shoes. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why don't you like him like that?”

Clarke raises her eyebrows. “Are you really asking me that?”

“I'm kind of hoping you'll be able to point out some flaws I've missed.”

“I never really knew him, Raven. I mean, not at all like you do and the version of him that I knew didn't have a girlfriend and didn't lie to me about that and when I found out that person didn't exist it just kind of killed any feelings I may have had. I need honesty and loyalty in my life and it was pretty clear he wasn't great at giving either of those things.” Clarke shrugs. “There are just some people you don't click with. And there are some people that kind of feel like exactly what you need.”

Raven is studying her. “Are you seeing someone?”

“What?”

“Your face just got all gooey and dreamy looking there for a second.”

“No. I'm not seeing anyone.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Jesus, yes, I'm sure.” Clarke thinks about Bellamy's protective instincts and how he holds her at night and the way he'd said, _let me take care of you_ , and bites back a smile.

“But there might be someone,” she admits softly, not looking at Raven.

“Ha! I knew it! Who is it?”

“It's complicated. I don't know if it'll ever... It's too early to talk about.”

“Your face is so red right now.”

“Thanks.”

Raven smiles. “I'm glad you're happy, Clarke.”

Clarke's thank you is genuine this time. She _is_ happy, for the most part anyway. She's still stressed and she's still worried about the people from Ark and it's still almost winter, but supplies are coming and Bellamy is at her side with advice or stories or anything else she might need and he's teaching her to defend herself and he makes her happy. She wonders if she'll ever be brave enough to tell him that.

If she thinks being confronted by Raven will be the hardest part of her day, she's sorely mistaken. Just after dinner, she heads back to the medic tent to finish putting things away for the evening. She hasn't seen Bellamy in a few hours, which isn't uncommon these days. He's mentioned scouting out to see if his people are close yet, but she's really looking forward to when she can climb into bed and absorb his warmth and tell him about her conversation with Raven (or most of it), so when she hears someone yelling her name in a panic, she feels her shoulders go tight and her perpetual headache makes an appearance.

A moment later, two boys burst into the medic tent, carrying a young girl. Clarke recognizes her. She's the youngest of all of them, a gentle soul, Charlotte. There's so much blood she can't even tell where it's coming from.

“What happened,” she demands, as they place Charlotte on the table. Clarke strides over and begins to rip her clothes away, searching for the source of the blood. Charlotte is unconscious, her eyelids fluttering. The boys stutter out something about the woods and a spear.

“Did you take it out of her?” Clarke asks as she finds a the gaping wound in Charlotte's stomach. The boys look at each other, nervous.

“Is that wrong?” one of them asks. Clarke's first instinct is to scream at them, but she swallows it down. Her second instinct is to lie and tell them it's fine, but she can't because they need to know how to survive out here.

“It's not great,” she admits. “Why don't you two go get me Raven to help,” she suggests, more to get them out of her way than because she thinks Raven will be any help. It's clear to her, after only a couple of minutes, that Charlotte's past saving, but even though she knows it, she can't stop herself from trying. She can't give up on this young, innocent girl who never, ever deserved something this brutal.

Raven comes in as Charlotte's pulse is fading. She steps up next to Clarke and seems to grasp that there's nothing to be done, though Clarke still has pressure on the girl's wound, trying to slow the loss of blood.

“Clarke,” Raven says gently, trying to pull her away.

Clarke shakes her head.

“Clarke, there's nothing you can do.”

“I can't- I need to...”

“Clarke, she's gone.”

The last of the fight seeps out of her body, leaving her trembling and covered in blood. Her failure is spinning around her head. _There's nothing you can do_. But she's supposed to be the one who can take care of them, who can fix things. She needs to get out of here. She just needs to breathe. She pushes past Raven and darts out of the medic tent. She hears Raven shout after her, but she doesn't stop until she's out of camp, out in the woods where no one can see her.

Her breath is coming too fast and she tries to stop it. She tries to swallow the sobs that are rising in her throat. This is her fault. A better doctor might have saved Charlotte, but Clarke's not a doctor, she was just a trainee. Her people deserve more.

A hand clamps down on her arm and she yelps, starting to use the defensive moves Bellamy's taught her, but then a familiar voice speaks.

“Clarke.”

Bellamy's eyes are dark, angry. She pulls her arm out of his grip. She doesn't want to see him right now. She just wants to be alone where she can let this feeling in her chest swallow her.

“Go away,” she snaps at him.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing out here!” Bellamy demands.

“Leave me alone!”

“I'm not leaving you out here! Do you have a death wish?”

“I don't need your help right now!”

“This isn't a discussion.” Bellamy catches her in his arms and throws her over his shoulder. She would fight him, but he's the one who's been training her, so she knows it won't do any good. Every move she knows, he taught her. He doesn't stop walking until they're at the edge of the woods, just outside the gates. She knows he won't go any further or he could be spotted in human form. He sets her down.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asks.

“I told you to leave me alone.” Clarke turns back towards the wilderness, taking a determined step forward. Bellamy blocks her path.

“I'm not kidding around here, Clarke.”

“I'm not either! I don't want you here!” Clarke feels completely shaky and breathless. Her insides are screaming that she's wrong. All she can think is, _please, please help me. Take this away._

“I'm trying to protect you!” Bellamy bursts out, the frustration clear on his face. Her heart is begging her to let him, but all that comes out is,

“I'm not _yours_ to protect!”

Bellamy's face shutters closed, the anger and fear disappearing. “Fine.” His voice is very cold. “Go and get yourself fucking killed.” He turns, shifts, and disappears into the woods. She thought she couldn't feel worse, but it turns out she was wrong. All of her insides feel raw. With no one to unleash her feelings towards, she stumbles back into camp and to her tent, where she collapses onto her cot and cries until she falls asleep.

 

 

 

**πόθος**

She doesn't start to worry until dinner the next night when she realizes she hasn't seen Bellamy since he dashed off into the woods. He's probably fine, she reasons. He's lived out here his whole life. He knows how to take care of himself. Still, she looks for him, her eyes scanning the trees, and when she returns to her tent for the evening, she feels stupid for hoping he might be there.

She regrets what she said to him. She'd done it to hurt him, to get him to stop pushing and finding her cracks and putting her back together because she hadn't felt like she deserved that from him. But it had been selfish of her to hurt him to deny herself his comfort. The guilt weighs heavily on her.

By the time two days have passed without even a glimpse of him, Clarke wants to pull her hair out. What if something happened to him? What if he was distracted by what she'd said and he hadn't been paying enough attention and one of the less friendly clans had caught him off guard? What if he's hurt or dying and she can't do anything to help him? Clarke walks around feeling sick to her stomach. The camp is more subdued than usual, many of the kids mourning Charlotte's death and Clarke tries not to think about how she'd woken up the morning after and still had her blood all over her hands and arms.

When five days have passed with no sign of Bellamy, she develops a new fear. What if he's just not coming back? He doesn't have to. He'd given his clan his opinion and they're on their way. He doesn't have to be here to greet them. His job is done. There's nothing to hold him here. This theory is terrifying in ways that her first one wasn't.

Exactly a week after their blow up in the woods, she steps into her tent for the night to find him sitting on her cot, elbows resting on his knees, chin in his hands.

“Hi,” Clarke says uncertainly.

“Hi.” He doesn't sound like himself, more subdued and tired than she's ever heard him.

“Bell, I'm sorry-”

He holds up a hand to cut her off. “Can we just... not tonight?”

Clarke swallows all the words she wants to say to him. They've been building in her for days, but she feels like she owes him this. She bites her lip, standing awkwardly into the entrance of the tent.

“But... you're back?” she asks tentatively.

“Yeah.” He still sounds so tired. “I'm back.” Before she has a chance to say anything else, he shifts to wolf and curls up in a tight ball, eyes closed. Clarke sighs and takes off her boots and pants, climbing into bed. She tries to shove down the hurt that wells up in her chest as Bellamy shifts slightly away from her. He came back. He came back when he didn't have to and that's more than she had dared hope for.

She wakes up in the middle of the night with her heart pounding and for one, terrible moment, she thinks his return was all a dream. But then her reaching hand meets his fur and she exhales in relief and leans her head back trying to breathe. When she looks back at him, he's blinking at her. All the things she wants to say come bubbling back up her throat.

“Bell.” She tugs gently on his fur. “I need to talk to you.”

He gives her a skeptical look, the one that says _you remember about the naked thing, right?_

“I mean it. Now.”

A breath later, Bellamy is human again, eying her warily. Clarke can't help but reach out and brush her fingers across his cheek where she knows there's a dusting of freckles.

“I just have to say this and if you don't want to talk about it after, then we won't. But I didn't mean what I said. I know you protect the people you care about and I want to be one of them.”

Bellamy's eyes soften. “Clarke.”

“I'm really sorry.” He leans his cheek, ever so slightly, into her touch. “What I said wasn't about you. It was about me and what I felt like I deserved.”

“I know, Princess.” the softness of his voice is gentler than it had been before.

“Thank you for coming back,” she whispers. Bellamy gives her the tiniest smile and it's that, more than anything, that has her leaning forward and pressing her lips against his. It's probably bad timing. They probably have more issues to work out and she has no idea what's going to happen later, but after one breathless moment, Bellamy's kissing her back and none of that matters. He pushes forward and drags her close and she opens her mouth under his, her heart slamming so hard against her chest she half worries it might just break through.

“I really missed you,” she breathes as he trails wet kisses down her neck. She tangles her fingers in his curls, trying to get enough oxygen into her lungs. Bellamy pauses, his chin resting on her sternum, eyes on her face.

“I hope you know I don't share,” he says in a low scratchy voice that she hopes she'll get to hear a lot more of. Once Bellamy's words sink past the surface they warm her up from the inside. Of all the ways him returning to her could have gone, this isn't what she expected.

“I'm all yours, Bell.” And she means that to a degree that terrifies her. He kisses her and she can taste on his lips that he plans to prove that to her and her heart feels lighter than it has since before her father found the flaw in the dome and her life spiraled out of control.

 

 

**ἐπιθυμία**

Clarke wakes up slowly, small things breaking into her sleep, the heaviness of her limbs, Bellamy's warmth pressed all along her back, his hand resting on her left breast, just shy of where he'd sucked a deep, bruising mark over her heart, a satisfying ache between her legs.

“Bell.”

He grumbles and hides his face in her neck, leaving an occasional small kiss.

“Bell, we have to get up.”

“Or,” he trails his hands lightly over her skin, “we could just stay here.”

“ _I_ can't. I have a camp to run,” Clarke reminds him, untangling herself from him before he can convince her to stay. She clambers out of bed, wincing a little at the soreness between her thighs, her eyes scanning the tent for where her clothes had ended up. She can see Bellamy out of the corner of her eye, pushed into a sitting position and watching her. She turns to meet his eyes and flinches a tiny bit again. She keeps forgetting about how sore she is. A small, proud smile is spreading across his face. She punches him on the arm.

“It's not funny! You don't have to be so smug about it!”

Bellamy stands up and pulls her to him. “I can't help but be a little proud,” he grins. “But I can be very gentle with you, if you prefer.” He presses little kisses to her jaw. “Anything for my princess.”

“I didn't say I didn't like it,” Clarke grumbles trying not to show the way his words fill her to the brim with warmth and fondness. He tugs on her earlobe with his teeth and she holds back a sigh, then pushes him off. She does not have time for this.

“That's about enough inflating of your ego for the day, I think,” Clarke says, gathering her clothes from around the tent and beginning to dress. Bellamy looks astonishingly like a little boy whose favorite toy has been taken away.

“Stop pouting.” Clarke pushes on her toes and kisses him. “It's only a few hours.” She turns and steps out of the tent, trying to suppress the wide smile that wants to stay planted on her face. A moment later, Bellamy is at her side, huffing the way he always does when he's a wolf and wants to express frustration.

Clarke ignores him and heads off in the direction of the gates. Miller is supposed to report on the patrols that had gone out yesterday. Clarke is still hopeful that they might come across some of the survivors from the dome, though she's not sure how she'll handle it if they do. She just can't bear the thought that all their parents and friends and family had all died. There have to be some of them out there, somewhere.

She finds Miller sitting on a stump, cleaning his gun. He nods at her as she approaches, then smiles.

“I thought your wolf had run away,” he comments.

“What?”

“Bellamy. He hasn't been around in a few days.”

“Oh.” Clarke glances at Bellamy, who's sat down a couple of feet and is watching the woods, but she can see his ears angled back in their direction, clearly listening.

“Yeah. I guess he was hunting or something,” Clarke suggests, trying not look pained at the mention of his absence.

“I heard some of the younger kids saying they think you can talk to animals and that's why he follows you around.”

Clarke laughs. “I like to think it's my winning personality.” She grins. “Any news from the patrols?”

Miller shakes his head. “I'm sending out two more this afternoon, but it doesn't look good, Clarke. Anyone who was going to make it this far should have passed through here already. Either there's no one to come, or they went in a different direction.”

“We're not giving up,” Clarke says firmly.

“I wasn't suggesting it.” Miller shrugs. “Just, don't get your hopes up.”

“Noted. Anything else I should know about?”

“I think we're missing a gun. One of the guys probably misplaced it, or got spooked and dropped it in the woods and is too chicken shit to admit it, but someone _might_ have taken it.”

“Should I be worried?”

“At this point, no. I'll keep looking for it and asking around. No one goes out alone, so if someone did lose it in the woods, one of my other guys saw it happen. If it's in camp, it'll turn up.”

“I hope so. I don't want to be treating any bullet wounds if I can help it.” Clarke smiles. “Let me know if any of the patrols see anything.”

“You'll be the first,” he tells her. Clarke gives him a little wave before she heads for Raven's tent. When she pushes back the flaps she finds her tinkering with some object that Clarke doesn't recognize.

“Hey.”

Raven glances up. “Hey, what's up?”

“I just came to see if there's anything in particular you want the boys to look out for while on patrol. Any parts that would be useful?”

“Not that any of them would recognize. I'll probably have to go searching myself soon.”

Clarke nods before heading on her way. Raven doesn't like to talk much while she's working. The rest of the day runs slow, which is both good and bad. The good news is, no one gets seriously injured. She deals with a few cuts or bruises, but nothing that even needs stitches. The downside is that she's bored out of her mind.

She practically runs back to her tent after dinner. She's barely cleared the entrance when she crashes into Bellamy. He catches her.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” She feels a smile begin to form on her lips, but he kisses her before it can become full fledged and she presses close to him. It becomes breathless fast, all searching hands and discarded clothing, and teeth and tongue.

“Only a few hours, huh?” he teases, hitching one of her legs around him.

“Shut up and get to work.” He does.

The whole camp has gone silent like it does in the dead of night by the time she lays her head on his sweat slicked chest and closes her eyes.

“Tell me a story?” she requests. Bellamy has an incredibly memory for the old myths, as he calls them. His fingers trace the grooves of her spine while he thinks.

“There was a man named King Minos who was the son of the god Zeus and a woman named Europa. Minos was the king of the island of Crete, but he had been forced to compete for the title with his brothers, so he prayed to the god Poseidon to send him a pure white bull as a sign of his favor. Minos was supposed to sacrifice the bull to honor Poseidon, but he liked it and chose not to. As punishment, Poseidon caused Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, to fall in love with the bull. She became pregnant with the bull's child and when it was born, it had the body of a man and the head of a bull and they called it the Minotaur.

“Minos hired a craftsman named Deadalus to construct a labyrinth to trap the Minotaur. Meanwhile, Androgeus, the oldest son of Minos, set sail for Athens to take part in a competition called the PanAthenian games. Androgeus was strong and did very well and some of the Athenians were jealous of him and murdered him. To get revenge, Minos waged war on Athens and, after he defeated them, demanded that every seven years the seven most beautiful maidens and the seven most courageous young men were to be sent to him. Aegeus, the king of Athens, was forced to comply with these demands. Minos would put the sacrifices in the labyrinth and they would be killed by the Minotaur.

“After two cycles of this,Theseus, Aegueus' son, volunteered to enter the labyrinth and slay the Minotaur. He replaced one of the other young men that was to be sacrificed and set sail for Crete. When Theseus arrived, Ariadne, who was the daughter of Minos, fell madly in love with him. She went to Deadalus, who had created the labyrinth and asked for his help to save Theseus. Deadalus gave Ariadne a ball of string and instructions to give Theseus so that he could survive the labyrinth. Theseus was successful in slaying the Minotaur and escaping the labyrinth with the other sacrifices in tow. However, he was confronted by the goddess Athena, who told him to leave Ariadne behind, so he abandoned her, sailing back to Athens. He was so distressed, that he forgot that he was supposed to sail with white sails to alert his father that he had been successful. Instead, they sailed with black sails and King Aegueus thought that his son had been killed and committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea.

“Minos, furious at Deadalus' actions, trapped both Deadalus and his son Icarus in the labyrinth. But Deadalus, being an inventor, crafted wings for him and his son out of wax and feathers. He warned Icarus that he must not fly too close to the sun or the sea or his wings would be ruined. Icarus agreed, but when he flew, he became so enchanted and excited with the feeling, that he accidentally soared too close to the sun and his wings melted, sending him crashing into the sea where he died.”

“That's a sad story,” Clarke says, wrapping an arm around Bellamy's waist. “Are they all that sad?”

“A lot of them.”

“I want a story about the moon,” Clarke murmurs sleepily. Bellamy shifts and pulls her closer. She can feel a rumble of a laugh in his chest.

“Anything you want, Princess.” Bellamy presses a kiss to her temple. “There once was a young mortal shepherd named Endymion. He was so beautiful that Selene, the goddess of the moon, fell deeply in love with him. But since he was mortal, he would eventually die. Selene could not bear the idea that he would one day leave her, so she went to Zeus to beg for help. Zeus, it turned out, was Endymion's father, and he allowed Endymion to choose when he would die. Endymion chose to sleep forever, ageless, so that Selene could visit him in his sleep. To this day, he slumbers on, trapped in eternal sleep for the woman he loves.”

Clarke's barely on the edge of consciousness. “That's kind of sad, too.” She falls asleep before she can hear Bellamy's answer.

She wakes up to Bellamy pressing wet kisses to her stomach, his teeth skimming lightly over her skin.

“What time is it?” she mumbles, threading her fingers through his hair.

“Very early.”

“Then why are we awake?” she asks, letting her eyes droop closed, even as she arches her back to be closer to him. His kisses move upwards, over the swell of her breasts.

“So we have time for this,” he says softly, his fingers tracing circles on her inner thigh. She can feel his erection pressed between them. She rolls them over, reaching down to grasp him, suddenly not very sleepy any more. The look in his eyes is hungry. She lowers herself onto him, relishing the pressure and stretch of him filling her up.

She starts a lazy pace, rolling her hips and enjoying the feel of him, until he makes a sound in that back of his throat that has her picking up the tempo, her hands braced on his chest. He sits up, his chest meeting hers, changing the angle in a way that has her breath catching. She wraps her arms around his neck and he slides a hand between them to rub at her clit.

From there, it's only a matter of moments before an orgasm hits her, her body clamping down on his as waves of pleasure roll through her. She stutters, then keeps the tempo until he follows her over the edge, pressing his face into her neck with a groan. They stay like that, both trying to catch their breath, until,

“Clarke! There's news from- Oh. _Shit_. _Shit,_ sorry!” Miller's already backing out of the tent, his eyes wide. Then he freezes, staring. “Wait, who the hell is that?”  
“Miller, get the fuck out!”

“Okay, okay. But this news is important, so hurry!”

Clarke can't help the frustrated noise that passes from her lips before she clambers off Bellamy, her legs weak. She fumbles for clothes, throwing his pants at him.

He raises his eyebrows.

“You can't just magically disappear. Miller's not stupid.” She fastens her bra.

“I'm not sure this is a good idea.”

“Wasn't the whole point of you being a wolf so that you could properly observe. Well, you've done it, you've observed.”

Bellamy stares at the pants for another long moment before standing up and dragging them on. “If this means I'm going to be human for extended periods of time, I'm going to need a shirt,” he points out, but that's all he says on the subject before he sits back down.

Clarke pokes her head out of the tent to see Miller a few feet away. “You can come in now.”

“Right,” Miller answers awkwardly, following Clarke back into the tent. His eyes immediately find Bellamy, confused and wary. “Who is he?”

Clarke waves the question away. “After. Tell me the news first.”

“One of my patrols sighted survivors from Ark.”

Clarke's heart flips. “How far?”

“Still pretty far out. They tried to approach, but lost their position once they left higher ground. I'm going to lead a group out to try to collect them.”

“Good.” Clarke nods. There's several moments of silence before Miller broaches the subject that's hanging over their heads.

“Who are you?” he asks Bellamy, finally.

Bellamy looks to Clarke and she can see he's willing to follow her lead. She takes a deep breath.

“He's Bellamy.”

Miller blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Show him?” she asks Bellamy. She thinks she hears him grumble something that sounds suspiciously like, _why'd you make me put on pants, then_. But he does as she asks, shucking his pants and then slipping into wolf form.

Miller's mouth is hanging open and when he finds his voice, he says,“What the actual fuck.”

Bellamy shifts human and picks up his pants. “It's not completely uncommon for my people,” he says as he pulls the pants back on.

“People,” Miller repeats. “There's more of you?”

“Yes.”

Clarke rolls her eyes at Bellamy's lack of explanation. “Apparently a lot of people survived outside of the domes and formed different clans. Bellamy is from a peaceful clan and was sent to observe us before they decided whether or not to reach out with help. He's advised them to help us with the coming winter and some of them are currently traveling here with supplies.”

Miller looks vaguely faint. “And he turns into a wolf.”

“Yes, there's that too.”

“Right.” Miller takes a deep breath. “Right. Okay. Any other surprises I should be aware of?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Right,” Miller repeats. “Fuck, this is going to be hard to explain to everyone.”

“I'd suggest you start with the clans part, not the wolf thing,” Bellamy speaks up. Clarke sighs. She should have known this would have to happen at some point, but the prospect of it is daunting. She thinks about the Ark survivors and Bellamy's people and everything that needs to be divulged and takes a deep breath.

“I think we need to call a full camp meeting.”

The entirety of the 100 are gathered just as the sun is starting to peek over the horizon, most still rubbing sleep from their eyes. Clarke and Miller stand before them, Clarke rubbing her hands together anxiously. Bellamy is standing back, in the shadows where he won't be noticed until it's helpful. She wishes he was by her side instead.

“Are you going to explain why we're all up at this unGodly hour?” Raven calls.

Clarke swallows. “There's news. First, one of the patrols sighted some survivors from Ark. After this meeting Miller will be leading a group out to try to find them.”

Excited chatter fills the camp, but Clarke holds up her hand, halting it. That was the easy news. The hard part starts now.

“As you all know, winter will be upon us soon. I know we've all done our best, but we're simply unprepared. I recently discovered that what we were taught in Ark was wrong. There _are_ people who survived outside of the domes and they formed clans and have been living in these harsh climates for years. I was approached by one of these people, an envoy sent from a friendly clan, who requested to observe our camp and then report back to his people so that they could decide if they wanted to help equip us for winter. I accepted and his report was positive, which means that his people are on their way, bringing supplies.” Bellamy steps forward from the shadows and stops at Clarke's side. There's a low murmur in the crowd.

“This is Bellamy.”

The murmur grows and she sees rows of confused faces. She thinks she hears someone say, _isn't her wolf's name Bellamy?_ Others are discussing the potential provisions in excited tones. She notices Raven is looking at Bellamy with calculating, narrowed eyes.

“Bellamy isn't like us,” Clarke continues, raising her voice. "Some of the people who were born outside of the domes evolved in certain ways.” Everyone has fallen silent. Clarke nods at Bellamy. He shifts, suddenly a wolf, and shakes the pants that are tangled around him off. There is absolute silence for a few moments, then the crowd erupts in noise. Most of the 100 just appear to be stunned, but there a few other reactions. Jasper appears to be jumping up in down with glee. Raven looks contemplative. Finn is furious.

“I understand this is a lot of information to digest!” Clarke yells over the crowd. “This meeting is dismissed.” She turns, picks up Bellamy's pants, and heads for the gates, Bellamy close to her side. She needs a little time to breathe. She needs space from everyone's eyes and their questions. She knows she'll have to face it eventually, but she isn't ready yet. Once they're in the shelter of the woods, Bellamy shifts human and Clarke hands him his pants.

“Any chance this will all die down in a couple of hours?” she asks him hopefully.

“Probably not, Princess.”

Clarke sighs, leaning back against a tree. Bellamy slides his fingers between hers.

“Let me show you something.”

Clarke lets Bellamy lead her through the woods into unfamiliar territory. The land gets more rocky. She hears the sound of running water a few moments before she sees the waterfall. It goes tumbling over a cliff face and ends in a pool of water that looks very deep.

“It's too cold for swimming,” Bellamy admits. There are several large boulders around the pool. He climbs up onto one, helping Clarke up behind him. “But the sun warms these up.” He lies down, stretching out on the rock and Clarke follows suit. She feels her muscles relaxing in the sun, a crisp breeze brushing her cheeks. She snuggles close to Bellamy.

“Thanks for bringing me here.”

Bellamy presses a kiss to the top of her head in response.

“Are there any stories about skin changers like you?” Clarke asks.

Bellamy hums. “Lots. The oldest ones, the myths like the stories I've already told you, aren't pretty.”

“ _None_ of those are very happy, but some of them _are_ beautiful,” Clarke comments. “So what do they say about people like you?”

“It's a simple story, really. Lycaon, the king of Arcadia, didn't believe that Zeus was truly a god. To test him, he served Zeus the roasted flesh of a guest from Epirus. He thought this would prove whether or not Zeus was omniscient. Unfortunately for him, Zeus was a god, and he took his revenge by turning Lycaon into a wolf and murdering his sons.”

Clarke wrinkles her nose. “That doesn't sound anything like you.”

Bellamy chuckles. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

“I still don't understand how you remember all the names and places and characters.”

Bellamy runs a finger up and down her spine. “My mother told me the stories. They've been passed down in our family for years. If I don't remember them, no one will.”

Clarke realizes she doesn't really know anything about Bellamy's life with his people. He doesn't talk about it and she's never pushed him for his history because she understands what it's like to not want to talk about things in the past.

“What was her name? Your mother?”

“Aurora.”

“Aurora,” Clarke repeats. “Isn't that the name of the lights you can see in the sky really far north?”

“Yeah, Aurora Borealis” Bellamy smiles. “She always wanted to try to go see them.”

_We could go_ , Clarke thinks, but she doesn't want to make the moment heavier than it is and it isn't really true because she's responsible for a whole people and he's got his clan, so she just holds him a little closer.

Finally, when the sun is high in the sky, Clarke sits up. “We should get back.” She climbs carefully down the rocks, Bellamy following. She wishes she could stay out here, with no responsibilities and no one looking to her for answers. They walk through the woods, fingers tangled together, Clarke allowing herself to set a lazy pace. When they get close to camp, Bellamy stops walking, tugging Clarke back towards him.

“What is it?” she asks, looking up at him.

He leans down and kisses her. Clarke lifts up onto her tiptoes, hooking her arms around his neck. Her control around Bellamy isn't very good. She ends up backed up against a tree, Bellamy's weight leaned into her. Clarke wraps her legs around his waist and his hands slip under her thighs for support. Clarke slides one hand down his chest and unbuttons his pants. She slips her hand inside to grasp him and she feels his breath catch. He presses his nose to the underside of her jaw near her ear. Clarke strokes him a couple of times, feeling him harden in her hand.

“Clarke?!” The voice is familiar and completely disconcerting at the same time and she tenses, her hand tightening in surprise and Bellamy curses in her ear, his hips rocking forward involuntarily at the additional pressure.

“Shit, sorry.” Clarke quickly removes her hand from his pants, her legs dropping from around him and she takes a deep breath and turns to face the owner of the voice.

“Mom.”

Her mother looks older, more lines on her face than the last time she saw her, but the expression she's wearing is familiar, all disapproval. Clarke feels an odd rush of emotions. She'd really believed her mother was dead and seeing her alive is weird and kind of unbelievable and makes the grieving she'd done for her feel hollow, but of course there's also the piece of her that sees her _mom_ and wants to throw herself into her arms. Under it all is the embarrassment of having been caught with her hand down Bellamy's pants. But past that, she realizes that her mother is not alone, in fact, there's a good twenty or thirty people who have come to a halt. She notices Miller at the head of the group, rubbing his temple and looking tired.

“Clarke,” her mother steps forward and Clarke takes a step back in pure instinct, colliding with Bellamy's hard form. She nearly stumbles, but his hands go to her hips and steady her. Her mother freezes, hurt flashing on her face for a moment before she pulls on the cold Abby Griffin mask that Clarke is used to.

“And who's this?” she asks, tilting her chin at Bellamy. Clarke wonders if he can see the judgment in her mother's eyes.

“Bellamy,” Clarke says and he squeezes her hips gently. She relaxes slightly.

“He wasn't one of the ones we sent out with you.”

“No. And he can talk,” Clarke snaps.

“Where are you from, then, Bellamy?” Abby asks, voice still sterile and professional.

“I grew up outside of the domes.” His voice rumbles against her back and Clarke is proud to hear that there's no hostility in it. He's keeping a cool head.

Surprise passes over Abby's features. “And what, exactly-”

“-We need to keep moving,” Miller interrupts.

“I'm not leaving my daughter out here!” Abby protests.

“Clarke and Bellamy will be fine, I assure you. They know how to take care of themselves.”

“I disagree.”

“Yeah, well, unfortunately for you, you're not in charge here,” Miller says firmly. Clarke has never liked Miller more than she does in that moment. Abby glares at him, but he only crosses his arms and stares right back. Finally, her shoulders slumps and she turns away from Clarke without looking back. Miller begins to usher the other adults in the direction of camp.

Clarke lets out a huge breath and turns around, resting her forehead on Bellamy's sternum. He rubs circles into her back.

“My mom's alive,” she breathes against his skin.

“She is.”

She looks up at him. “I don't even know how to feel and that's wrong, isn't it? I should just be happy.”

“I told you, Clarke. You can love her without forgiving her. But if you want to forgive her, that's not wrong, either.” His eyes are sincere and gentle and Clarke feels overwhelmed by how much she feels for him.

“Thank you.” She hugs him, then steels herself and begins to lead the way back to camp.

“On another note, that is _not_ how I wanted to meet your mother,” Bellamy says, a mix of horror and amusement tinging his tone.

“It could have been worse.”

“Please tell me how that could have been worse.”

Clarke grins wickedly at him. “It could have been five minutes later.”

Bellamy groans. “Seriously, what do you have to do to get some privacy around here?” The gates come in to view.

“What privacy?” Clarke teases, and somehow, by the time she walks back into camp, despite everything, she's smiling.

 

 

 

**μήτηρ**

The problem with having Abby Griffin as a mother is that she doesn't let things go. No matter how much she tries to dodge her mother for the next two days, Abby finds her. Clarke still isn't sure if she's ready to forgive her mother for what happened with her father, but it turns out, that's not what's on Abby's mind.

“What do you think you're doing with that boy?”

Clarke looks up from sorting herbs in the medic tent to see her mother in the door. “What?”

“Bellamy. What on _Earth_ do you think you're doing?”

Clarke narrows her eyes. “I thought you'd have a pretty good idea of that, considering what you so rudely interrupted,” she says harshly.

“That's not cute.”

“I really don't care what your opinion on the matter is,” Clarke says. She's starting to develop a permanent cramp in her left shoulder from how tense she's been.

“You're being reckless.”

“What I do is none of your business.”  
“You're a _child_.”

“No.” Clarke slams her hands down on the table and fixes her mother with a glare. “I don't have the _luxury_ of being a child. I have nearly 100 people who rely on me everyday to figure out how we're going to survive. Maybe I _should_ be a child, but I lost that chance the moment you and the other council members forced me out of Ark.”

Abby opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off when Bellamy strides into the room, carrying a steaming bowl of stew. He ignores Abby's presence entirely.

“I brought you dinner.”

“I was going to-”

“-Nope. You need to eat, Princess. You have to remember to take care of yourself,” he scolds. Clarke rolls her eyes, but feels a smile tug at her lips. He sets the bowl down on the table and hugs her. Clarke feels her tension slip away and realizes she doesn't care one single bit that her mother is watching them. She stands on her tiptoes to kiss him and she loves that he doesn't shy away because her mother is there, but kisses her back, deep and gentle, until she's breathless. She sinks back down onto the flats of her feet.

“Thanks,” she says softly. The world feels like a kinder place when he's with her.

“Don't mention it, Clarke.”

She turns back to her herbs, wondering if her mother is going to stand there all night, and sighs at the tightness in her shoulders. Of course, Bellamy notices. She'd complained about them a few times over the past few weeks and even coerced him into a couple of shoulder rubs. His hands land on her shoulders.

“Are they bothering you again?”

“Mostly just the left one.”

He kisses her temple and digs his thumbs into her shoulders. Clarke half whimpers half sighs at the feeling. It's painful, but wonderful.

“You should let Miller take more responsibility. He can handle it. It's not healthy the way you work.”

Clarke grumbles at him, but picks up the bowl of stew. That's when she realizes Abby is gone and she doesn't have any idea at what point she ducked out. She doesn't know if she's relieved that their conversation was cut short, or annoyed that Abby took the easy way out.

“We never talk about you,” Clarke murmurs to Bellamy that night when she's curled up against his chest, her mind spinning too much to sleep.

“That's not true.”

“Okay, maybe not never, but rarely. Are you really so much more pulled together than me that you don't have problems to complain about?”

Bellamy laughs. He laughs so hard that Clarke sits up to look at him. “Sorry,” he gasps. “I'm just thinking about the kind of teenager I was and how you couldn't even have _begun_ to ask me that question then. I was a mess, Clarke, really.”

“But see, there's something. I don't even know how old you are!”

“I'm 23.”

“I should've already known that,” Clarke pouts. Bellamy pulls her back against his chest.

“You happen to have caught me at a good point, Princess, that's all. Give me a little while, I'll have some sort of crisis and you can be the supportive one.”

“What was wrong before?” Clarke ventures.  
“I didn't have the easiest life growing up. I know it sounds weird, but give any society enough time and a class system will appear. My family is near the bottom and I grew up with a big chip on my shoulder. I was angry a lot. I fought a lot. And then my mom died and I realized it was time to grow up, that's all.”

“One day,” Clarke presses a kiss to his chest. “I'm going to get you to tell me the whole story.”

He slides his fingers up and down her arm. “It's not a happy one.”

“None of your stories are,” Clarke teases, making him grin a little.

“One day, then, I'll tell you everything.” Clarke falls asleep hoping with every fiber of her being that he means it.

It turns out that Abby isn't easy to dissuade. Clarke's in the middle of a discussion with Miller, one in which he's having to tell her about more missing supplies and the still absent gun, when her mother appears at the corner of her vision, hovering. Clarke ignores her.

“The issue is, obviously whatever happened with the gun was before the adults arrived. But now, I don't know if the missing supplies have to do with the gun, or if some of the newcomers are taking things that don't belong to them.”

“If someone's taking supplies and a gun, they might be planning on leaving.”

Miller scratches his head. “I'm going to post guards on the supplies from now on. It'll take away a little from the front gate, but we haven't had a problem in months and it'll be worse if we end up without supplies that we need.”

“I agree.”

“Clarke, can I talk to you?” At least Abby had bothered to ask this time. Clarke takes a moment to steady herself before turning to her mother.

“Okay, but I need to go back to my tent to get some herbs I was drying there, so you'll have to come with me.” Clarke starts walking, assuming that Abby's following. She's a little relieved that Bellamy isn't in the tent when she gets there; he tends not to wear clothes when he's in. Abby sits down on her cot, running her fingers over some of the furs.

“I haven't seen anyone else with bedding this nice.”

“Bellamy gave it to me,” Clarke says shortly.

Abby sighs. “I know you don't believe me, but I really just want what's best for you, Clarke. You're my daughter and I love you and I'm just trying to protect you.”

“You don't even know him.” Clarke checks the leaves of the herbs she'd hung. They're not as dry as she'd hoped, but she keeps her eyes on them so she doesn't have to look at her mother.

“I've known men like him.”

“Like _what,_ Mom? Because Bellamy takes care of me, and he makes sure I remember to eat enough, and he teaches me how to defend myself so I don't feel helpless, and he listens to my problems and helps me try to figure out how to lead a bunch of teenagers, and he tells me stories, and I don't know what you think you know about him, but you're wrong.”

“I've heard what they say.”

“What _who_ say?”

“The other delinquents. They say he can turn into a wolf and I would say that's impossible, but I've seen things Clarke, out in these woods, that I never thought I would see.”

Clarke can't help it, she bursts out laughing. She'd completely forgotten that her mother has never seen Bellamy as a wolf. He'd spent so much of his time in wolf form before he'd been outed to the camp that she's forgotten that it's all just a rumor to her mother.

“Yes,” she says, finally. “Bellamy can turn into a wolf. But I know you, Mom. You're all about science and don't pretend like you're buying into voodoo and curses and reflection of evil nature or whatever else might claim to be an explanation for his ability.”

“But he's different, Clarke. He's not like you or me and he'll love you differently. I just don't want him to break your heart.”

Clarke pinches the bridge of her nose, taking calming breaths. “The problem is, Mom, it's always been about what _you_ want. But this is my life and my decisions and he's what _I_ want.”

Abby's shoulders slump. “I really hope you're right about him, Baby. I hope he loves you as much as you think he does.” With those words ringing in the air, Abby leaves the tent.

 

 

 

**ἀδελφή**

Absorbing twenty seven new people in to camp is no easy task. It is made infinitely harder by the fact that they are adults, used to being in charge, and seem to have an opinion on everything. Clarke is pretty sure she's said the words, “If you don't like it, you're free to leave,” about a thousand times in the past five days. She knows they mean well. She knows that they think that their age and experience make them valuable and their opinions valid, but these are people who have spent less than half the time outside of the dome than the teenagers have. The things they learned growing up in a perfectly controlled city won't help them here.

Clarke tries to be patient, she really does, but it's hard to listen to someone give her the same piece of _wrong_ advice over and over and over again. Try this, you should do that, this will work _much_ better. Clarke wants to tear her hair out and yell, “Don't you think we've already tried all these obvious solutions you're throwing at us? Don't you think if they _worked_ we would have used them?” But she keeps her mouth shut and nods at their advice and tries to ignore them.

She's taken to walking in the woods in the late afternoon to keep her stress levels in check. It's not the safest place to be, but Bellamy tends to tag along and is never too far away, disappearing for no more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. It's also his only chance to really get some exercise and hunt. He'd explained that spending too much time as a human makes him lazy.

Clarke has never been the biggest fan of the woods, but they're so much better than spending her afternoon being pestered into insanity, so she tries to appreciate the quiet of the forest and the way the sunlight slants through the trees. She practices walking softly, the way Bellamy taught her, so as not to scare away game. This is probably why she rounds a boulder and almost runs directly into a girl. Clarke backs up quickly, assessing the woman in front of her. She's younger than Clarke, though not by much, and dressed in various furs, so clearly from a clan. She's beautiful, with braids in her dark hair and light eyes and striking cheekbones. She looks stunned at being caught unawares.

She says something in a language Clarke doesn't understand, but does recognize. It's a clan language, the same one that is Bellamy's native tongue. He's taught her a few words, but definitely not any of the ones the girl has just spouted.

“Who are you?” Clarke demands.

The girls shoulders relax and Clarke takes that as a sign that she doesn't appear to be a threat to the girl. She's a little offended by the assumption. Sure, the girl has a sword strapped across her back and could probably take Clarke out in a matter of moments, but Clarke _has_ been learning to defend herself and she likes to think she could last a little while in a fight.

“Who are _you_?” The girl responds.

“I asked you first.”

“I'm the one with a sword.” She unsheathes it. Before Clarke has a chance to answer, Bellamy bounds out of the underbrush and skids to a halt in front of Clarke. He doesn't have his ears flat, but he presses himself back against Clarke's legs and gives a soft warning growl to the girl.

“ _Bell_?” the girl's eyes go wide. It takes Clarke several moments to understand that this girl knows Bellamy well enough to recognize him in his wolf form. She doesn't understand what's going on. Bellamy slips away from Clarke and approaches the girl, who puts her sword away and drops to her knees to hug him.  
“Holy shit, they didn't tell me you'd be here.”

Bellamy lets her hold him for several moments before pulling away and padding back to Clarke, pressing up against her legs and whining.

The girl stares at him. “Really? Her?”

Bellamy growls softly and the girl holds her hands up in surrender.

“Okay, Jesus Christ, I'll be nice.” She finally turns her eyes back on Clarke. “Hi, I'm Octavia.”

“Clarke,” she says, but her mind is whirring, trying to figure out why that name sounds so familiar. She imagines it in Bellamy's voice, and then she remembers, the story of the boy he'd told her when she was half asleep. Things click into place. It was more a reality than a story, then.

“You're his sister,” she breathes, understanding and relief welling up in her.

Octavia's eyebrows shoot up. “He told you that?”

Bellamy is looking between them, helpless to add to the conversation.

“Shouldn't he?”

Octavia shrugs. “He's private. He doesn't talk about me much.”

Bellamy whines again.

“Don't be such a baby,” Octavia snaps. “But he's right,” she adds to Clarke, “We should go to your camp so he can make proper introductions and such. He won't shift in front of me, nudity and sisters don't go together so well.”

Clarke gestures towards camp and the two take off. “Are you part of the group that's bringing supplies?” she asks.

Octavia nods. “Yep. They sent me ahead to scout and they wanted someone to arrive first so your camp had a little warning and wasn't overwhelmed. I didn't know why it was me, but it's probably because Bell is here. I haven't seen him in ages.” Bellamy disappears ahead of them, moving at a faster pace in the terrain than either of the girls could easily manage.

“Do you not live in the same village?” Clarke feels a little bad, prying into Bellamy's private life through his sister, but apparently _he's_ not going to tell her anything. She hadn't even known he _had_ a sister.

“Not anymore. Obviously we grew up in the same place, but I'm betrothed to a man from a different clan, so I've been living with them for the past two years. We're getting married in the spring. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What exactly are you to my brother?”

Clarke swallows. She doesn't really know the answer to that question. Their relationship had just slowly shifted from one thing to the next and there had been no talking about it. Clarke shrugs.

“It's just odd, that's all,” Octavia comments.

“What is?”

“The way he reacted, when we were standing off. I've never seen him choose someone's side against me.”

Clarke tries to brush it off. “Well, I wasn't exactly a _threat_ to you.”

“Yeah. I've just... He doesn't really do that. A lot of the girls in our village like Bellamy and he's happy to spend a night or two with them, but it's never more than that.”

Clarke feels her stomach sink down to her knees. She's suddenly remembering her mother's words, _I hope he loves you as much as you think he does._ Not that she thinks Bellamy _loves_ her, exactly, but they're _something_. Something more than just a night or two of sex. Aren't they?

She shrugs one shoulder. “I don't know. Maybe you should ask him about it.”

Octavia's eyes are calculating. “Maybe I will.”

Clarke, for one, is glad to see the gates up ahead. By the time they reach them, Bellamy's standing there, human and dressed. Clarke finally managed to get him a shirt. Octavia throws herself into her brothers arms, laughing.

“I missed you, Bell.”

“I missed you too, O.”

“We have so much to catch up on.”

“And how much time? When are the rest of them getting here?”

“Probably tomorrow evening. I'm not too far ahead of them.”

“I take it Lincoln's with them.”

“Yes and you're going to be nice to him.”

Bellamy frowns. “I'm always nice to him!”

Octavia rolls her eyes. “Sure. Now, show me around this camp and introduce me to the best people!” Clarke hangs back as the siblings disappear inside the gates. She's suddenly left feeling that she doesn't know Bellamy at all and she really doesn't want to trail them around camp, letting the feeling grow.

She decides to retire early and crawls into her bed. She even takes a few herbs to help her sleep and stop her spinning mind from keeping her up. Even so, her rest is fitful, tossing and turning and wondering where Bellamy is. He doesn't come to bed until the sun is starting to rise and Clarke pretends to be asleep when he crawls in beside her and loops an arm around her waist. For the first time, his hold isn't comforting. Clarke wonders if all his actions are hollow, something he's done over and over with different girls until it's a habit.

As early as she can possibly find an excuse for, she climbs out of bed, leaving Bellamy sleeping. She doesn't need to be up this early, but lying in bed awake had become suffocating. She steps out into the crisp air and realizes, with confusion, that the ground is crunchy beneath her boots. She steps a few times, testing out the odd surface.

“It's frost.”

Clarke turns to find Octavia a few feet away. “Oh.”

“It's the first sign of winter. It's probably just a cold snap, but it's good the supplies are almost here.”

“Right.” Clarke heads towards the fire pit, thinking some warm breakfast sounds nice. Octavia follows her. They both get bowls of broth and settle on to logs.

“I need to ask you something,” Octavia says.

“Okay.”

“Look, you seem fine. I don't know you. I get that. But Bellamy's my big brother and we look out for each other. This camp needs supplies, badly, and to get those supplies, you need Bellamy.” Octavia gives her a pointed look, but Clarke is genuinely unsure what she's getting at.

“Um?”

“I'm asking you if you're using my brother.”

“What?”

“It's not an unreasonable conclusion to draw. You've got him trailing you around like a lost puppy. Every word out of his mouth last night was _Clarke this_ and _Clarke that_ and _Do you think I should go see if Clarke's alright?_ or _Clarke would say_. You've got him completely wrapped around your finger and I just want to know if that's because you care about him or because you know he's useful.”

Clarke stares at Octavia. “Excuse me? Just last night you were all, 'Bellamy doesn't really do that' and 'he's happy to spend a night or two with them' and now you think _I'm_ using _him_?”

“That's _exactly_ why I'm worried! He's crazy about you! I've never seen him act like this. I'm not going to let you hurt him.” Octavia's expression is fierce. Before Clarke can even begin to formulate a coherent response there's the sound of boots on the hard ground and warm arms wrap around Clarke's waist from behind. Bellamy nuzzles into Clarke's neck before pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Morning, Princess.” He shifts his weight around on the log and pulls Clarke into his lap. Clarke can feel Octavia's glare, but doesn't look at the other girl.

“Sorry I kind of ditched you yesterday,” he murmurs into her ear. “I just hadn't seen O in so long and I guess I can have a bit of a one track mind.”

Clarke turns her head to kiss him. “It's fine. I know you were happy to see her.”

Bellamy hums and then snitches Clarke's broth, taking a sip.

“Hey, that's mine!”

“You don't even like breakfast.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and chances a glance at Octavia. “So, Octavia, what do you usually do for your village?” Bellamy had told her some of the roles people play in keeping a village running, but she knows she's missing some.

Octavia looks at her and Clarke can see the warning in her eyes. “I'm a warrior.”

 

 

 

**δέος**

Clarke spends the next 24 hours in a state of confusion. She's got her mother's and Octavia's input all chasing each other around in her head. ' _I hope he loves you as much as you think he does.' 'He doesn't really do that.' 'He's crazy about you.' 'I just don't want him to break your heart.'_ And the only person she hasn't heard any input from is Bellamy. She tries to tell herself it's silly, worrying so much about this when there are real problems, buts she can't seem to stop.

When she steps out of the medic tent in the mid afternoon, she nearly gasps in surprise. There are cold, wet, white flakes falling from the sky.

“Snow,” she breathes out, holding her hands out, palm up. In a matter of moments, she's managed to revert to the mentality of a five year old, spinning around and beaming up at the sky. She stumbles to a halt, dizzy, and notices Bellamy leaning on a nearby tent, arms crossed, watching her with soft, fond eyes. She forgets, in that moment, that she doesn't understand what they are and what he wants might not be what she wants, and spins happily over to him, tugging at his arms.

“Come on, Bell! It's snowing!”

He laughs, but lets her drag him out to a more clear area where she can spin around to her hearts delight. After a few moments, he catches her around the waist and pulls her in to him, leaning in close so their noses brush. She feels flushed, but where their skin touches she can tell he's much warmer than she is.

“You've never seen snow before,” he comments in a tone that almost sounds like awe.

“Obviously.” She intends it to be snarky, but it mostly comes out breathless and with wonder.

“I've never kissed anyone in the snow before.” He kisses her then, hot and wanting, stealing back all the breath she'd managed to regain. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark and Clarke feels like she could fall right into them and never stop.

“You're so beautiful,” he murmurs and Clarke's sure if she wasn't already so flushed from the cold, her blush would be obvious. Bellamy isn't usually so free with his feelings. _I love him_ , Clarke realizes. It's a truth that's been hanging around the edges of her brain for some time, one that she's been too scared to acknowledge, but there's no denying it to herself any longer. She can't know how Bellamy feels, not without asking, but she loves him and all she wants is to get to continue to do so.

She smiles at him, looking up through her lashes, and drags him back to her tent to “warm up” and makes it her mission to kiss every bit of him.

Clarke's found a certain sense of peace by that night, wrapped in Bellamy's arms and slipping in to dreams. It's a relief to admit how she feels to herself. It feels like half of her anxiety has floated away. She loves him and that's not going to change just because Abby and Octavia have opinions.

She's woken from her sleep by the sound of a commotion and reaches out to find Bellamy is no longer beside her. She stumbles out of bed, worried and confused. She's halfway across camp, heading towards the sounds, when she hears a gunshot and earsplitting yelp and then silence and she's heard a similar sound once before, when the man in the woods had cut Bellamy. Her chest constricts and she breaks into a run.

There's a semicircle of stunned looking kids standing around. Clarke pushes through them and freezes at the scene. Dax is lying on the ground, eyes unseeing, his throat torn out. A couple of feet away, Murphy is sitting on the ground, looking dazed, bleeding from several jagged wounds. Finally, there's Finn, holding a gun, Bellamy lying at his feet, blood pooling on the ground.

Clarke has never before understood the word “wail” but it's the only description for the sound that rips from her throat now. She shoves Finn out of the way and drops to her knees next to Bellamy. His fur is slick with blood and his breathing is shallow, but he _is_ breathing. Clarke isn't sure if her sob is from relief or terror. Someone crouches beside her and she turns her head just enough to that it's Miller.

“We have to get him to the medic tent,” she breathes, trying to be calm and rational like she knows she should be, but her voice shakes. Miller nods and calls out for men.

“And arrest Murphy and Finn,” Clarke adds, fury starting to rise. Several boys appear and lift Bellamy.

“Be careful,” Clarke says, though they already are. She stands up to follow them and comes face to face with a distressed Finn.

“Clarke,” he starts. Fury nearly swallows her whole. The look on Finn's face is all innocence and apologies. She pulls an arm back and punches him.

“I don't ever want to talk to you again,” Clarke says, ice in her words as Finn blinks up at her from the ground in surprise. A couple of boys descend on Finn and Murphy at Miller's orders, dragging them both to their feet. She takes several steps after the boys carrying Bellamy, but spots Raven in the spectators and stops.

“Get my mother. Tell her I need her in the medic tent immediately. And then find Octavia.”

Even with her delays, she arrives at the medic tent at the same time as the boys carrying Bellamy. They lay him out on the table and Clarke feels her knees go weak at the sight.

“Put pressure on the wound,” Clarke commands one of the boys. She moves around to Bellamy's head.

“Bell.”

His eyelids flutter.

“Bell, if you can hear me, I need you to shift human. Okay? I need you to do that for me.”

His body shivers, but nothing happens.

“Bell, please.”

He shudders again, and then suddenly he's human. The blood looks worse against his skin than it did his black fur. Clarke holds down another sob. He's lost so much blood. Her hands skate down his body to where the boy is putting pressure on the wound. She pushes his hands away and replaces them with hers. Her hands are trembling and she can't fix him, not when she's shaking like this.

“What's going on?” Her mother pushes into the tent. “Raven said-” her eyes land on Bellamy.

Clarke looks at her mother, knowing what she must see, her daughter with blood up to her elbows and red eyes and matted hair.

“You have to save him,” Clarke whispers.

“Clarke-”

“-No, listen. I've never forgiven you for what happened to Dad. I don't even know how to, but I'll try. Okay? If you do everything you can to save him, I'll try.”

Her mother takes a deep breath and gently pushes Clarke aside. Clarke feels her shoulders sag in relief and she moves out of her mother's way, to the head of the table.

“Tell me what happened,” Abby says in her calm doctor voice.

“I don't know,” Clarke responds. “I think Finn shot him.”

“You,” Abby points at one of the boys who'd carried Bellamy. “Get me water and rags. You, come hold his shoulders. If he wakes up, he might fight me.” The first boy darts away and the second approaches Bellamy warily, not looking thrilled with his task, but plants his hands on Bellamy's shoulders nevertheless.

Clarke drags the wooden bench over and sits down so she's at nearly the same height as Bellamy. She brushes his hair back from his forehead and tries not to cry.

“Where is he!” Octavia skids through the entrance, eyes wide. She pauses at the sight of her brother, fear flaring in her eyes. She moves slowly, coming around the table to stand behind Clarke.

“The bullet's lodged inside of him,” Abby states. “I'll have to remove it before I can repair the damage. He's lost too much blood. I don't know if-”

“-Please don't say it,” Clarke interrupts weakly. She can't hear that. Abby falls silent, brow furrowed, then turns to the boy.

“Keep a good hold of him, this will hurt him.”

Octavia sinks onto the bench next to Clarke, but Clarke can't bring herself to look at her. Instead, she leans her forehead against Bellamy's temple.

“Please don't leave me,” she whispers, the tears she'd been fighting finally overpowering her and sliding down her cheeks. She pulls back and wipes furiously at her eyes.

The first boy arrives with Abby's supplies and she nods. Clarke looks away from her mother and a moment later, Bellamy's body arches on the table. His chest heaves and he cries out. Clarke clings to one of his hands.

“Ssshh, it's okay. She's going to help you, Bell,” she murmurs. He's probably too far gone to hear her, but she has to say it. She has to believe it. An arm slides around Clarke and she startles, but turns to see a teary eyed Octavia. She hardly knows the girl. She's not even sure she likes her, but she hugs her back because she's the only person who can possible understand how Clarke feels, who's right there, feeling it too.

Her mother's actions are a blur, barking orders at the boys, all business. She doesn't know how her mother ever thought that Clarke was cut out for work like this, not when it's somebody who matters. She's remembering Charlotte's eyes and Charlotte's wound and the way she'd slipped away, right through Clarke's fingers.

Abby leans back on her heels. “That's all I can do for him. He'll have to do the rest.”

Octavia turns her head. “Is he... What are his chances?”

“Hard to say. I think I've managed to repair all the damage, but the blood loss isn't good. He'll be unconscious for some time. Hopefully he didn't lose so much his brain was deprived of oxygen for too long. We won't know until... if he wakes up.”

Clarke reminds herself to breathe. Octavia untangles herself from Clarke and stands up to face Abby.

“Thank you.”

Abby shakes her head. “Don't thank me. I did it for Clarke.” Then she turns and walks out of the tent. Clarke doesn't move. She doesn't think she can move. It feels like it might interrupt some careful balance. She's staying right where she is until they know for sure.

“I'm sorry I doubted you,” Octavia says softly. “It's clear to me now. You love him too.”

Clarke almost wishes she didn't.

 

 

 

**ἔρως**

Octavia's fiance Lincoln arrives the next morning, along with winter supplies and several villagers. Clarke lets Miller deal with sorting and storing the supplies, with figuring out who needs what, with getting the kids better clothes and thicker blankets, all of it. Part of her aches and feels guilty for forcing him to take up the mantle of leader while she sits at Bellamy's side, but she can't bring herself to move. Octavia reports that Raven's been picking up some of the extra slack and Miller visits once and tells her it's fine and not to worry about it. Clarke wishes things were that simple.

After lunch, Octavia brings Lincoln to the medic tent with her. He turns out to be a huge, hulking man covered in tattoos, but something about his eyes is soft. Clarke nods absently at the introduction and Lincoln doesn't seem like one for many words. He asks for permission to check Bellamy's wounds and Octavia explains that Lincoln has some medical knowledge. Clarke is reluctant to have anyone's hands on him, but Lincoln is quiet and sure of himself and Clarke finds herself nodding consent. She wonders when everyone decided that was her decision anyway.

“Your mother did a good job,” Lincoln praises. “It will only be a matter of waiting, now.”

Bellamy wakes up late that evening, eyelids fluttering and breath becoming fast paced. Clarke grasps his hand and talks to him until he opens his eyes, staring at her with pain and confusion.

“Clarke?” She breathes a huge sigh of relief.

“Hey, Bell.”

“What happened?”

“You don't remember?”

“I remember.... Dax. Is he?”

“He's dead. Finn shot you. But all you need to focus on is getting better.”

Bellamy's eyes close again. “I told you I didn't like Finn,” he mutters. “ _So_ , not a pacifist.” and Clarke laughs, even though she's crying.

Octavia convinces her to leave her vigil and actually sleep in her own cot that night. She's so exhausted she practically collapses into the furs. She wakes up midmorning and decides it's probably time to go find Miller and see if there's something she needs to do. She finds him by the fire, eating breakfast.

“Morning.”

“Did you finally get some sleep?” he asks.

She nods.

“Good. We've all been worried about you. How's Bellamy?”

“My mom thinks he'll make a full recovery. He just needs to take it easy for a while. He'll probably be a pain in the ass about it.” She smiles fondly.

“I feel like it's my fault,” Miller says lowly.

“What?”

“I asked him if he could take a shift watching the supplies. He'd asked if there was anything he could help with and I thought, you know, who better than a wolf? According to Finn and Murphy, they and Dax were planning on heading out on their own. It was a stupid plan, anyway. So Bellamy caught Dax trying to steal food. I guess Dax freaked out, because he attacked Bellamy. Murphy says he saw Dax strangling him. The idiot tried to strangle a wolf with his bare hands, and of course Bellamy got free and that was the end of that. But Murphy and Finn were nearby and they were scared and Murphy tried to attack and got a lot of bite marks for it. Finn had the gun. Apparently he's the one who stole it a few weeks back. While Bellamy was busy with Murphy, Finn shot him.”

Clarke shoves the mental images away. “What are we supposed to do with them now?”

Miller sighs. “I think that's one that I can't decide for you.”

She hates them. She hates them both, but she swallows that down. “We can't be like Ark. We can't just execute people for their first offense. But I won't have attempted murderers hanging around camp. They wanted to leave? _Let_ them. Make it clear that they will not be welcome here any longer.”

“Finn is asking to see you.”

Clarke shakes her head. “Too bad.” Clarke waves goodbye to Miller and trudges to the medic tent. Bellamy is still asleep when she enters, Octavia sitting at his side.

“Has he woken up again?”

“Only for a moment,” Octavia stands up, stretching like a cat. “I'm going to get some sleep, but I'm sending Lincoln over to check on him again. Not that I don't trust your mother, I just...” she shrugs. Clarke understands.

When Lincoln joins her, he acknowledges her with a nod then turns to Bellamy. He works silently, but his presence is comforting.

“When do you have to go?” Clarke asks.

Lincoln doesn't turn around. “My people need some rest after the trek here. We will stay for a while, then leave before the real winter hits and it becomes hard to travel.” Clarke nods, glad. It will be good to have Octavia here for Bellamy's recovery. She lets her gaze trace over Bellamy's face,

“Lincoln?”

“Yes, Clarke?”

“I'm wondering if you can help me with something.”

It takes two and half weeks for Bellamy to be able to move around at all. He'd avoided infection, which was a good sign, but his recovery had been slow. Abby assured Clarke that none of his major organs were damaged and he was lucky that the bullet had been high enough to enter his upper torso, rather than abdominal area. The chances of survival with such a wound would have been very slim. He moves slowly, gingerly, and hasn't shifted to a wolf once since he was shot. No one's quite sure what it might do to the healing process and Clarke is absolutely not willing to risk it.

Despite it all, his spirits are incredibly high, which Clarke attributes to the presence of Octavia. The two laugh easily and constantly needle each other, affection written all over their faces. It makes Clarke wish she'd had a sibling, because she's never felt that sort of easiness with anyone in her family, not even her father.

On the 18th day of recovery, Clarke forces him to rest after lunch and she crawls onto the cot with him, careful not to disturb his wound. She rests her head on his chest and he slides his fingers between hers.

“You haven't asked for a story in a long time,” he comments.

“I wasn't really in the mood for sad stories,” she admits. She hadn't wanted to hear him talk about lovers who lose each other in some tragic way. It's still too close to home.

“I do know _some_ happy ones,” he teases. “Let's see. Danaus the king of Argos, had fifty daughters and his twin brother, Aegyptus, had fifty sons. Aegyptus commanded Danaus to marry his daughters to Aegyptus' sons. Because Aegyptus threatened war, Danaus agreed, but commanded his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night.”

“This doesn't sound like a happy story,” Clarke interjects.

“Hush and listen. Forty nine of Danaus' daughters did as they were bid, but one, Hypermnestra did not, for her husband, Lynceus, was kind and gentle and honored her request to remain a virgin. Danaus was furious that Hypermnestra had not heeded his orders and sent her to the Argive courts, where she was saved by Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Lynceus killed Danaus in revenge of his brothers and he and Hypermnestra then created their own dynasty.”

“That is only minutely happier than your other stories,” Clarke grumbles.

“The lovers end up together and happy,” Bellamy points out.

“You didn't say they were happy.”

“They were happy, Princess.”

She doesn't even think to worry until the night she meets Echo. She's one of the villagers who'd travelled to the camp. Clarke hasn't gotten to know many of them. They mostly keep to themselves and Clarke's been occupied with Bellamy's recovery. Echo sits next to her at dinner and introduces herself. She's pretty in a sort of fierce way, like many of the villagers.

“How's Bellamy?” Echo asks. It's still odd to Clarke, to think that all of these people know him so well, have known him his whole life.

“He's doing better. He's still weak, but he's not in danger any more.”

“I hope he's strong enough to travel with us. It will be difficult if he must remain here for the winter.”

“Travel with you,” Clarke repeats, the words feeling foreign on her tongue. Somehow, she'd never even considered that Bellamy would be leaving with the rest of them. He's been here, been with her, for months now. The idea that he'll pack up and go hadn't so much as crossed her mind.

“Of course. Anya's very worried about him, I'm sure.” Anya. It's a name Clarke doesn't know, another piece of his life he hasn't shared with her. Has she been stupid thinking he might stay with her, stay _for_ her? It's not like he's mentioned it. But he hasn't mentioned leaving, either.

“Right,” Clarke says slowly.

“He hasn't talked about Anya?” Echo tilts her head slightly, looking confused.

He hasn't talked about any of it, Clarke thinks. “Not really.”

“She's our leader,” Echo clarifies. “She named Bellamy as her successor two years ago, when Octavia left with Lincoln and Bellamy was rather lost. He's been training to take over one day. Anya isn't completely healthy, so she may step down in a year or two.”

Clarke feels completely foolish. Without thinking about it, her hand goes to her chest, where her skin still burns. She excuses herself shortly after and slips back into her tent, taking deep breaths until she convinces herself she's not going to cry. When Bellamy comes in later, he crawls into the bed, presses a kiss to her cheek and whispers,

“Goodnight, Princess.” She doesn't answer.

She wakes up to Bellamy shaking her.

“Clarke,” his voice is concerned.

“What?”

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“What?” she repeats.

“You're crying. You were crying in your sleep.” She brushes her hand over her cheek and it comes back wet. Bellamy's looking at her so tenderly that she has to leave. She stands up.

“Clarke?”

“I'm fine. It's nothing.”

“Clarke, what's going on?”

“ _Nothing._ ” She grabs her pants and flees the tent. She has to be stronger than this. He's leaving. He _has_ to go, to be there for his people, just like she has to stay for hers. And he's never said a word, so maybe he doesn't even want her to come if she could. Clarke watches the sunrise from just outside the gates, sitting in the grass and locking up all her love for Bellamy because she needs to heal as soon as possible.

She knows he can tell something's wrong. It's in the questioning glances he sends her way or the frowns that appear on his face when she avoids physical contact. He doesn't mention it, but Clarke catches Octavia's curious eyes on them several times over the next three days.

They're leaving in two days, before the winter truly hits. Clarke watches them pack up with sullen eyes, telling herself it's okay, she can handle it. But her throat is perpetually tight and she's cried more than once in the solitude of the woods.

She's sitting on her cot, sketching, trying to take her mind off things, when Bellamy finds her, serious eyes on.

“Clarke.”

She looks up at him and tries to shove down how much she wants to hold him.

“We need to talk.”

“Okay.” She steels herself. This is it. He's finally going to tell her he's going and she's _not_ going to cry over him. She's already done that too much. He sits down next to her, staring at his hands.

“Clarke, do you not want to be with me anymore?” She'd had her answer ready, on the tip of her tongue, but his question confuses her.

“Wha- Aren't you leaving?”

He finally looks at her, brows pulled together. “Leaving?”

“With the rest of your people. Aren't you going?”

“No.”

“But...” She doesn't understand. He has a responsibility, doesn't he? “But you're supposed to lead them. Anya's sick, isn't she?”

Bellamy gapes at her, then shakes his head. “Who told you that?”

“Echo.”

Bellamy reaches for her hand. She's been flinching away from him for the past three days, but she doesn't stop him now. Her heart is pounding in her chest, but she's afraid, too afraid to hope.

“Echo doesn't know what she's talking about. I sent word to Anya that I was relieving myself from that position months ago. If Anya's having a hard time believing that, that's her problem.”

“But, why?”

“Because I don't want it. I never wanted it.”

“So you're not... You're not leaving me?” she asks, unsure.

“Leaving you? Fuck, Clarke, is that what all this has been about? Of course I'm not leaving you. I wouldn't do that.” He's looking at her like she's gone absolutely mental.

“But Octavia said you don't really do this,” she gestures between them. All this sort of feels like a dream.

Bellamy looks annoyed for a moment, but then pushes it aside. He cups Clarke's cheek, gazing gently at her. She leans into his hand. Bellamy's touch is like hope slipping into her veins.

“Clarke, I love you,” he says lowly. “I'm not going anywhere without you.”

The dam she'd built up inside her breaks. She leans forward and kisses him. She hasn't kissed him in three days and it feels like forever. He wraps an arm around her waist and tugs her into his lap, but she's careful not to brush his injured side. He's doing very well, but he's still tender.

“I love you so much,” she whispers. She's wanted to say it for weeks now. Bellamy kisses her cheeks, her jaw, her neck.

“You know, next time you're wondering about my intentions,” he says into her skin, “you should just ask me.”

Clarke ignores him and pushes his shoulders back a little so there's some separation between them and he's looking up at her.

“I want to show you something,” she says, reaching for the hem of her shirt and tugging it over her head.

“You know, believe it or not, I've actually seen your-” he cuts off his snarky sentence abruptly, staring. His fingers reach out to trace the lines of the small, black wolf Lincoln had tattooed over her heart.

“When did you get this?” he asks, his voice full of awe.

“Three days after you woke up,” she admits. “Lincoln did it for me.”

Bellamy drops a gentle kiss to the tattoo. “The warrior princess and her wolf. That sounds like it could be a myth, doesn't it?”

“I hope not,” Clarke responds. “I fully intend for our story to be happier than that, so don't go getting all tragic on me.”

Bellamy laughs. “Anything you say, Princess.” And he kisses her until it feels like a fairytale.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. This was honestly supposed to be "a short little oneshot" based on a dream a had two nights ago and somehow it ended up 25k. There are possibly issues. I don't know. I hope someone enjoys it.
> 
> EDIT: Okay, so I really didn't expect so much lovely feedback this quickly, so thank you guys for all your nice comments! I've now gone back through it and corrected some of the typos and such (since I posted this at 2:30 AM my time and didn't really proof read it beforehand), but if you see any typos or issues, let me know and I'll go in and correct them. Again, thanks so much! <3
> 
> EDIT #2: There are two drabbles in my drabble collection (We'll Make a Memory Out of It) Creatures of My Dreams Pt. 1 and 2 that are set in this universe if anyone is interested.


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